Research on Biped Locomotion Robot with Inertial Assist and Synchronous-drive on Self-excitation

Abstract

We introduce a synchronous drive control of biped using inertial accelerators. The accelerator may be a wheel with rotational acceleration motor or a simple mass with linear acceleration drive. To assist a kind of weak bipedal locomotion such as smaller steps of elder people with less muscle strength, an additional support drive should not impede an original movement. Thus, a synchronous drive is needed. We had developed such a synchronous drive for kicking motion in 2009. This paper introduces a similar drive for inertial acceleration assist system to synchronize a self-excitation. We developed an experimental robot with both wheel type and simple mass type accelerator together with a synchronous kicking system on semi-passive 3D dynamic biped with free hip joint. Experiments indicate a validity of inertial assist concept, because a forward locomotion is produced by assists.