Passive dynamic walking of compass-like biped robot with dynamic absorbers

This paper investigates the roles and effects of dynamic absorbers attached to the leg frames on the gait properties of passive dynamic walking. First, we model a passive compass-like biped robot that consists of two identical leg frames with passive dynamic absorbers that represent micromechanical vibration or human flesh dynamics. We then conduct gait analysis through numerical simulations to observe how small oscillation of the leg frames affects the gait properties, and show that speeding-up is achieved by utilizing the indirect softness produced by the dynamic absorbers. Second, we investigate the dominant effect of small oscillation using the same model. The simulation results show high nonlinearity in the generated walking gait.