Uncrewed Ground Vehicles (UGVs) and Nature-Inspired Designed Robot DIGIT and SPOT: A Review

Researchers around the world are developing autonomous robot systems to assist humans with tedious, hazardous, complex, and time-consuming tasks. Today, autonomous robots are used for a variety of applications, ranging from delivering food to operating on patients. A robotic system can be operated with or without human assistance, depending on whether it is manned or unmanned. Additionally, the robot may be classified as an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV), or Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV), depending on its operational conditions. An autonomous robot may be equipped with manipulators and advanced sensors, such as a LiDAR camera, which can collect 3D spatial data. The present study reviews recent research and development of unmanned ground vehicles, including two nature-inspired designed robots called SPOT and DIGIT and presents its technical data. In addition, this study introduces the challenges and applications of these robots. A novel type of comparison was made in this study between some UGVs, human and animal-inspired designed robots, where researchers were able to get an idea of different robot basic specifications that could be used to select these robots for future research. As a result of this study, two more studies will be conducted in the future.