Host: The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers
Name : [in Japanese]
Date : June 06, 2021 - June 08, 2021
Passive dynamic walking on a gentle slope provides one of the most excellent gaits of legged robots in terms of its energy efficiency, since the energy required to make a forward stepping is supplied solely by the gravity. To extend such gait to level ground, or more challenging condition, e.g., rough terrain, a fundamental task is to recycle the energy consumed by the ground collision. Inspired by soft tissues of animals and humans, wobbling masses have been attached to the walkers in the previous studies. Here we investigate the effect of different kinds of wobbling masses on the gait performance. First, a biped walker with a 2-DOF passive wobbling mass model is derived. Second, passive dynamic walking gait of this robot is numerically generated. Finally, the motion analysis is conducted under different wobbling conditions. Our results show that the walking speed can be improved by up-and-down oscillation, however, worsened by rotational oscillation of the wobbling.
