• CN: 11-2187/TH
  • ISSN: 0577-6686

Journal of Mechanical Engineering ›› 2026, Vol. 62 ›› Issue (15): 291-323.doi: 10.3901/JME.260453

Previous Articles    

Review of Structure, Control, and Simulation Research on Wheel Foot Composite Mobile Robots

CHEN Jiupeng1,2,3, LUO Yingluan1, SAN Hongjun1,2, LI Chunlei1, ZHANG Fan1,2   

  1. 1. Faculty of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming 650500;
    2. Key Laboratory of Advanced Equipment Intelligent Manufacturing Technology of Yunnan Province, Kunming 650500;
    3. Yuxi Xintianli Agricultural Equipment Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Yuxi 652699
  • Received:2025-08-24 Revised:2025-12-29 Published:2026-10-13

Abstract: Wheel foot composite mobile robots have broad application prospects in military, inspection, and agricultural fields due to their unique leg structure and superior obstacle crossing performance. The wheel foot hybrid robot combines the advantages of both wheeled and legged robots, and can flexibly cope with various complex terrains and tasks. Due to various limitations such as structural characteristics, drive control, and hardware implementation, improving the movement speed and obstacle crossing ability of wheel foot hybrid robots is currently one of the urgent problems to be solved. This review systematically elaborates on the research progress of wheel foot hybrid mobile robots from multiple perspectives, including biomimetic structure design, motion control, and physical simulation engines. The application scenarios of various wheeled legged robots at home and abroad were enumerated, and the main structural characteristics of wheeled legged robots were summarized. The modeling and control methods of wheeled legged robots were summarized, and further extended to the system modeling of wheeled legged robots. This research introduces the application of traditional commercial software and the development progress of physical simulation engines, analyzes various physical simulation engines suitable for wheeled robots, and elaborates on the advantages and disadvantages of different physical simulation engines. Described the problems in the development of wheeled robots, and looked forward to the application scenarios and future research directions of wheeled robots.

Key words: wheel foot composite mobile robots, structure design, motion control algorithm, physics simulation engine

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