Math Into Motion: Robotic Hexapod for Hazardous Environments

Overview

In fields such as rugged exploration or search and rescue, the ability to navigate terrain safely is crucial. This is often done through robotics; however, traditional systems (rovers, drones, four-legged robots) have caveats that can limit stability or traversability. Hexapods (six-legged robots) offer superior static and active stability to other legged robots, are more able to navigate terrain inaccessible to rovers, and can sustain significantly larger payloads than drones. Hexapods can be applied in fields, such as search and rescue in active combat areas, where (while eliminating human risk) stability in a rugged environment is key. The Mark V hexapod (the 5th version and current model) has proven to be an effective hexapod with all necessary core capabilities of a 15 carrying capacity, 100+ meters of effective range, and a 4-5 mph top speed. Mark V includes many advancements from previous models, such as an inverse kinematics and linear interpolation based gait system, an IMU course correction system, an effective and complex PCB, and tetherless operation. These allow the hexapod to become a platform for specialization for a wide variety of purposes. In the future, these hexapods could feature terrain-based gait adaptation, a neural network for autonomous gait management, or a vision machine learning model based autonoumous system with hardware architecture acceleration.

Competition history

• CSEF 2026 Electronics & Electromagnetics (Senior Division) · Entry S-10-10

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