Design and foot contact of a leg mechanism with a flexible gear system

This paper presents a mechatronic design of a leg mechanism with a flexible gear system. The foot contact with the ground or obstacle is also studied. Simulation and experimental results of the impact effects to the foot and motor are given to illustrate the improved model with the design of a gear-spring motor unit. The impact force is largely low-pass filtered thus protecting the gear box and motor. In this work, a leg mechanism with flexible gear system was designed and constructed. The fuzzy position/force control was also applied. It was found that the fuzzy position/torque control can eliminate the overshoot and works better under different contact velocities. It is also adaptive to unknown obstacles.