Title :
Design of a robot leg with elastic energy storage, comparison to biology, and preliminary experimental results
Author :
Berkemeier, Matthew D. ; Desai, Kamal V.
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Aerosp. & Mech. Eng., Boston Univ., MA, USA
Abstract :
This paper presents a novel robot leg design. The leg is powered by a DC motor which drives elastic tendons to turn a foot. The tendons store elastic energy just as in nature. Preliminary experimental results show the leg has a well-defined resonance which can be exploited to produce hopping. We also offer a comparison of our leg with the cat hindlimb. Eventually, the leg will be part of a quadrupedal robot
Keywords :
DC motors; legged locomotion; mechanical energy storage; motion control; resonance; DC motor; elastic energy storage; elastic tendons; hopping; quadrupedal robot; resonance; robot leg; Animals; Biological system modeling; Energy storage; Foot; Leg; Legged locomotion; Mobile robots; Resonance; Springs; Tendons;
Conference_Titel :
Robotics and Automation, 1996. Proceedings., 1996 IEEE International Conference on
Conference_Location :
Minneapolis, MN
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-2988-0
DOI :
10.1109/ROBOT.1996.503597
