Design Challenge - June 2009

MIKE TURNER

“The Antares Ant has been conceived as a medium-duty excavating walker, employing electro active polymer (EAP) technology (see Design Challenge, March 2009) to provide motive power to the legs.

The walking mechanisms and stability systems are inspired by the 2008 BigDog prototype developed by Boston Dynamics in the USA. Extrapolating this technology to gargantuan proportions, the Ant would have four articulated legs with compliant EAP elements to absorb shock and recycle energy from one step to the next.

Onboard computer systems and sensors would oversee movement and stability. Sensors would regulate ground pressure, providing automated dig cycles, and permit the machine to respond instantly to unexpected changes in terrain.

This particular derivative of the Ant design features bucket attachments in place of conventional feet – enabling the machine to dig at all four corners if required. Likely operational scenarios for this particular variant would include dual trenching and light quarrying. The Ant would also be well suited to land reclamation projects in waterways and lagoons – typically working to a wading depth of 4-4.5m. Forester/harvester variants with more conventional feet could also be derived.

Although this concept is equipped with an independently suspended operator cab to iron out the bumps, the X-by-wire control interface and onboard technology would enable the Ant to work remotely if required. A cab-less variant could be developed for work in hostile climatic environments and potential military applications.”

Background to the design

“Tackling a ‘no wheels or tracks’ brief was always going to feel like a pretty tough assignment, as my off-highway design experiences to date have been solely based around these two established drive systems. However, I’ve always been inspired by the sheer presence and engineering complexity of walking machines and harvesters, having first encountered them in the iron at Intermat 2003.  So for this assignment, developing a walker seemed like an interesting route to explore – however unfamiliar.

To my mind, in terms of outright mobility a walker should be able to outperform a wheeled machine of equivalent size, as it can lift itself up and over obstacles that wheels cannot traverse. It also has the potential to self-level on terrain that would be considered too uneven for wheeled vehicles to navigate.

However, given my background in construction vehicle design, I wanted to push the boundaries a little further and investigate the possibility of a walker that could also dig – like animals do in the wild. This scenario presented a pretty scary set of additional variables. Could a machine be designed with enough sophistication to self-level and adjust automatically to terrain variables, allowing the operator sufficient freedom to dig holes and move earth?

At first I wasn’t too sure, but having reviewed the full spectrum of existing walker solutions on the market and currently in development, I began to feel a little more confident that perhaps one day it might be considered feasible.
One existing walker in particular that fired my imagination is Boston Dynamics BigDog ( www.bostondynamics.com/robot_bigdog.html ). This prototype machine already seems to have enough inherent technology to tackle very difficult terrain in its robotic stride.

Assuming my own design could match the control sophistication of BigDog, I began to look at different package layouts. It struck me fairly quickly that in order to dig, the operator would probably want to see the feet – so they’d have to end up ahead of the cab, and the cab would need panoramic visibility. This gave rise to the overall stance of the design, which was clearly a lot more insect-like than canine.

Although I didn’t think it made sense to pursue the six-legged aesthetic of an ant, there was enough about the character of these seemingly indestructible worker insects to justify a few carryover design cues: the segmented body sections, the mirror/antennae, winch/mandibles and splayed foot design.
The design of the legs were carryover items from my work on the loader arms of the earlier Antares wheeled loader project, as I felt the juxtaposition of these angular forms worked well in comparison to the amorphous body sections so some styling and parts carryover would be inevitable. It was also fun for me to imagine that perhaps the Ant would follow on in the fictitious development timeline of the Antares product range.

The finished design is fairly ‘out there’ in terms of its appearance – something alien and perhaps a little unexpected… but thinking back to my own first encounter with real-life walking machines, this Ant really doesn’t feel like such a giant leap in logic or technical feasibility.”

More images from Mike Turner

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Biography

Mike Turner has been a professional industrial designer since graduating from Coventry University in 1996.

From the beginning of his career, he has been actively involved in and inspired by off-highway vehicle design projects, working with construction and groundcare companies on active projects even as an undergraduate.

He was senior industrial designer at JCB for more than five years, working as part of its in-house team responsible for the design development of all cosmetically sensitive exterior and interior components.

He left in 2007 to set up his own business, Mike Turner Design Limited, working as a 3D CAD-based industrial design freelancer.

Contact details:

Email: mike@miketurnerdesign.com
Web: www.miketurnerdesign.com
Tel: 07918 053474