Dynamic modeling and energy consumption analysis of crab walking of a six-legged robot

In this paper, an attempt has been made to develop a detailed dynamic model of a realistic six-legged robot during its crab motion. An energy consumption model has been derived for statically stable wave-crab gaits after considering a minimum of dissipating energy for optimal feet forces distributions. Two approaches, such as minimization of norm of feet forces and minimization of norm of joint torques have been developed. The performances of these approaches have been compared with each other for different values of duty factor. The effects of walking parameters, namely velocity, stroke, duty factor and crab angle are studied on energy consumption during crab walking. Wave gait with a lower duty factor is found to be more energy-efficient compared to that with the higher duty factor at the highest possible velocity.