Consideration of a Compass-type Passive Gait Model with Musculoskeletal Viscosity

Abstract

In passive walking, robustness against fluctuations in physical conditions is important. In previous studies, the method to simultaneously adjust joint stiffness and viscosity was reported for robust passive walking. However, this method was analyzed only through numerical simulations, and the mechanism to adjust joint stiffness and viscosity was not considered for an actual system. To develop the mechanism to simultaneously adjust joint stiffness and viscosity, this paper incorporates a muscle model that changes viscosity into both legs of a compass model and verifies its usefulness through simulation. In the simulation, varying the slope angle and joint mass, and the robustness of walking is compared with other systems.