Parametric excitation approaches to efficient dynamic bipedal walking

Traditionally, an inverted pendulum has been used as a reduced biped locomotion system, whereas this paper proposes a different approach. The essence of dynamic biped gait generation is mechanical energy restoration, and parametric excitation approach is a good idea for it. Our novel approach does not require any rotational actuation and thus enables to be free from the constraint of zero moment point (ZMP). This paper considers some basic methods of parametric excitation and shows that energy-efficient biped locomotion can achieved very easily without taking the ZMP condition into account. We then conduct parametric studies by adjusting the control and physical parameters, and determine how well the basic gait perform by introducing some performance indices.