Steerable rolling of a 1-DoF robot using an internal pendulum

An uneven shell surface enables steering by using only the movement of the pendulum, allowing for mechanically simple designs that may be feasible to scale to large quantities or small sizes. We train a control policy using reinforcement learning in simulation and deploy it onto the robot to complete a rectangular trajectory. I. INTRODUCTION A. Motivation Existing spherical robot designs require two to four actuators for steering and jumping capabilities [1], increasing cost, power use, maintenance, and size. Reducing the number of actuators can alleviate these challenges, making it easier to scale to greater numbers and smaller sizes. This work investigates ROCK, a robot with an internal pendulum controlled by a single motor capable of rolling, steering, and jumping.