Development and Path Planning of a Low Cost Hexapod Mobile Robot

Computer Science and Robotics are becoming consistent methods in teaching Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics in schools all over the world. In this sense, robots have been developed for schools and teaching, in several ways of configurations. Unfortunately, there are few legged robots available in the market, and none of them were developed in Brazil, which makes it more expensive to import. This paper presents the development of a lowcost fully functional hexapod, for educational purposes, describing its hardware and software. Its development was conceived with 3D-printer legs and lowcost servomotors, that can be easily acquired and assembled. A transparent API to control its functionalities was developed to provide a quick learning. The Hexapod's Kinematics chain and its motion strategy are discussed, with a pseudo-Inverse Jacobian method to execute the legs Inverse-Kinematic, allied with quintic polynomial function servo planner, leading to a smooth movement to each hexapod's leg.