Abstract
Due to the high nonlinearity of large displacement motions inverse dynamics is a standard control concept well established in robotics and walking machines. It is shown that inverse dynamics results in high energy consumption and requires large power supply. For autonomous robots and walking machines the power supply adds to the weight, and additional weight needs more power again. It is proposed to use local energy storage by springs to overcome the drawback of inverse dynamics. The design principles for reduced energy consumption are outlined with simple mechanical models and will include nonlinear characteristics of the springs to improve further the local energy storage capacity. An application to a robot arm modeled as multibody system is shown.
