While one chooses to design/manufacture a mechanical legged creature a natural question arises - why do we need a legged robot?
The answer to the question is quite simple although there may be many facets to it. Firstly, a legged creature is the creation of nature. Man has been proud of the wheel since he discovered its uses way back in time. However, no naturally occuring species on earth has a circular traction for locomotion. Simply put, it is an attempt to emulate nature.
Second,as effcient the wheel may be on flat terrain it is unsuitable for navigation on uneven terrain. Interplanetary explorations in the future will most certainly use legged creatures for locomotion(NASA's new interplanetary explorer - www.nasa.gov ). This does not mean to say that the wheel is inefficient, it only means to point out the inefficiency of the wheel on uneven terrain.
Design and manufacture of four legged robots is an arduous task, challenging and sometimes nerve racking. A conventional approach would be to look for a robot with six legs because of its inherent advantage - a three point stability. This is precisely why a four legged robot poses a challenge to design. In continuum, a triped, biped and a monoped would quite naturally pose a challenge of a much larger magnitude.
The advantage of a six legged robot is not immediately apparent. It produces a huge cost saving and also power saving which are two critical factors - economy and efficiency. For information refer to the "Why ALIEN" section.
Therefore for an undergraduate group like ours the sheer excitement, thrill and the magnitude of the work that we were to undertake was too much of an adrenaline rush to resist!
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