2005 Volume 23 Issue 7 Pages 910-918
It is clarified throughout studies of passive dynamic walking mechanisms that the common necessary condition for dynamic gait generation comes from the requirement on mechanical energy restoration. Until now we have treated only rotational joints of the robot, whereas in this paper we considers a novel dynamic gait generation method based on mechanical energy restoration by parametric excitation phenomenon using telescopic leg actuation. We first introduce a simple biped walking model and a control law for telescopic leg motion, and analyze the typical walking pattern with respect to the change of control and physical parameters by numerical simulations. We then numerically analyze the energy efficiency in the presence of an elastic element by introducing criterions, and show that suitable adjustment of mechanical impedance dramatically increases the energy efficiency. Further, some extensions of the mechanism and control applications are investigated.
