Conventional robots that utilize a wheel or caterpillar track
mechanism to crawl under, climb over, or go around small obstacles
require a complicated design and can be very costly. The proposed
jumping mechanism allows the robot to overcome an
obstacle as long as it can be surmounted by jumping, eliminating
the time wasted by a detour. Several mechanisms have been developed
previously to permit a robot to jump, such as a winch wire
release [5], spring compression, and pneumatic extrusion [6,7].