Title :
Bipedal Walking and Running with Compliant Legs
Author :
Iida, Fumiya ; Rummel, Jürgen ; Seyfarth, André
Author_Institution :
Comput. Sci. & Artificial Intelligence Lab., Massachusetts Inst. of Technol., Cambridge, MA
Abstract :
Passive dynamics plays an important role in legged locomotion of the biological systems. The use of passive dynamics provides a number of advantages in legged locomotion such as energy efficiency, self-stabilization against disturbances, and generating gait patterns and behavioral diversity. Inspired from the theoretical and experimental studies in biomechanics, this paper presents a novel bipedal locomotion model for walking and running behavior which uses compliant legs. This model consists of three-segment legs, two servomotors, and four passive joints that are constrained by eight tension springs. The self-organization of two gait patterns (walking and running) is demonstrated in simulation and in a real-world robot. The analysis of joint kinematics and ground reaction force explains how a minimalistic control architecture can exploit the particular leg design for generating different gait patterns. Moreover, it is shown how the proposed model can be extended for controlling locomotion velocity and gait patterns with the simplest control architecture.
Keywords :
biomechanics; legged locomotion; robot kinematics; biomechanics; bipedal running; bipedal walking; compliant legs; gait pattern generation; ground reaction force; joint kinematics; legged locomotion; Biological system modeling; Biological systems; Biomechanics; Energy efficiency; Leg; Legged locomotion; Pattern analysis; Servomotors; Springs; Velocity control;
Conference_Titel :
Robotics and Automation, 2007 IEEE International Conference on
Conference_Location :
Roma
Print_ISBN :
1-4244-0601-3
Electronic_ISBN :
1050-4729
DOI :
10.1109/ROBOT.2007.364088