Postural Stabilization and Motion Control of the Rope-Hopping Robot

Abstract

In addition to the industrial robots for production, a large number of robots for nonindustrial use have been developed recently. These include emergency rescue and fire-fighting robots, as well as robots for amusement, educational use and security. The authors have no doubt that the robots for amusement and educational purposes hold great promise for future applications. Thus, we developed a rope-hopping amusement robot. Although rope-hopping is an easy exercise even for young children, there are several difficulties to overcome if it is to be executed by a robot. The developed robot is composed essentially of one leg, one main body attached by a pivoting joint to the top end of the leg, and a double arm holding a rope. As the main body swings forward and backward, postural stability of the robot in the vertical plane is maintained using feedback control based on "compound center of gravity of the robot". The rope-hopping motion of the robot is realized by cooperative use of the leg, the main body and the arms which rotate the rope according to the proposed path. Experimental results show that the control methods developed to achieve the postural stability and jumping of the robot coordinated with the path of rotation of the rope have useful applications in other areas.