High-speed limit cycle walking for biped robots using active up-and-down motion control of wobbling mass

In this paper, we propose a novel method for fast limit cycle walking using active control of a wobbling mass. Limit cycle walkers achieving energy-efficient walking have been developed in the last decade. Many researchers have recently studied methods for improving walking speed of limit cycle walkers. In human walking, humans swing their arms according to walking phases and the motion is a regularly symmetric motion about the torso. We consider that this motion is an active up-and-down motion for a mass and improves biped walking speed. We numerically and mathematically show that a biped robot achieves fast limit cycle walking by the proposed method.