Effects of compliant ankles on bipedal locomotion

Authors:
Thomas Schaub;Michael Scheint;Marion Sobotka;Wolfgang Seiberl;Martin Buss
Affiliations:
Institute of Automatic Control Engineering, Technische Universität München, München, Germany;Institute of Automatic Control Engineering, Technische Universität München, München, Germany;Institute of Automatic Control Engineering, Technische Universität München, München, Germany;Department of Biomechanics in Sports, Technische Universität München, München, Germany;Institute of Automatic Control Engineering, Technische Universität München, München, Germany
Venue:
ICRA'09 Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE international conference on Robotics and Automation
Year:
2009

Citing 1
Cited 2

Three uses for springs in legged locomotion

International Journal of Robotics Research

A Compliant Hybrid Zero Dynamics Controller for Stable, Efficient and Fast Bipedal Walking on MABEL

International Journal of Robotics Research
Quasi optimal sagittal gait of a biped robot with a new structure of knee joint

Robotics and Autonomous Systems

Quantified Score

Hi-index	0.00

Visualization

Abstract

The influence of ankle compliance on bipedal robot locomotion is investigated in this paper. The focus is on reduction of energy consumption. The concept of hybrid zero dynamics is adapted to design walking gaits with three phases: underactuated heel roll, full actuation and underactuated toe roll. Ankle springs work in parallel with the ankle actuators. Stiffness and offset of the linear torsional springs at the ankle and gait parameters are optimized simultaneously. It is shown that simultaneous optimization of spring properties and gait is superior to optimizing the spring after the gait. Optimal spring stiffness and offset lead to a major reduction in energy consumption. Furthermore, a more human-like gait is observed for simultaneous optimization of gait and spring parameters compared to gait optimization with zero stiffness.