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RABI (short for "Robotic Adaptive Behavioral Insect") is a 6-legged robotic platform that can be interfaced to an external computer through a tether. It has 4 frontal antennae (whiskers) and two on the side. It is capable of walking, turning, overcoming small obstacles, avoiding collisions, following edges, mapping and navigation. It uses 12 motors to lift its legs. There were a few different mechanical versions developed before this final one:

RABI was built as part of my Master's Thesis in Computer Science. I initially wanted a robot that could walk and climb in a varying terrain, but I realized that it would take more time and money than I had.   The main difficulty I encountered during construction was that the robot could not support its own weight, let alone lift itself up. I went through several pain-staking leg designs in order to achieve a robot that could hold its own weight. It took 6 months to get the thing to walk.

I have two circuits that may be of interest. The first is the simple circuitry which allows the leg positions to be read. Each leg uses two of these circuits to read horizontal and vertical positions.

The second circuit represents the electronics that interface a leg with the control buses. It shows how the leg limit switches and positions are read as well as how the leg motors are actually controlled.