A Letter on Progress Made on Husky Carbon: A Legged-Aerial, Multi-modal Platform

Animals, such as birds, widely use multi-modal locomotion by combining legged and aerial mobility with dominant inertial effects. The robotic biomimicry of this multi-modal locomotion feat can yield ultra-flexible systems in terms of their ability to negotiate their task spaces. The main objective of this paper is to discuss the challenges in achieving multi-modal locomotion, and to report our progress in developing our quadrupedal robot capable of multi-modal locomotion (legged and aerial locomotion), the Husky Carbon. We report the mechanical and electrical components utilized in our robot, in addition to the simulation and experimentation done to achieve our goal in developing a versatile multi-modal robotic platform.