Biped gait generation based on parametric excitation by knee-joint actuation

Restoring mechanical energy lost by heel-strike collisions is necessary for stable gait generation. One principle to realize this is parametric excitation. Recently, Asano et al. applied this principle to a biped robot with telescopic-legs, and succeeded in generating a sustainable biped gait by computer simulation. In this paper, we deal with a model of a biped robot that has not only semicircular feet but also actuated knees. Though this robot has no actuator at the hip, knee actuators can sustain gait by parametric excitation. We first verify that an actuated knee can cause parametric excitation, and then show by computer simulation that the proposed biped robot can walk continuously with actuated knees only.