Legged Walking Robot Design Applying a Behavior of Passive Dynamic Walking

—Joint D.O.F Alignment Design Applying the Adaptive Function—

Abstract

Almost traditional researches about legged robot's walking apply Zero Moment Point (ZMP) as the reference of motion control to avoid falling. And in order to control the ZMP based legged robots precisely, joints of the robots are generally composed by powerful and precise DC-motors with high reduction ratio, such as industrial robots. However these types of robots have been pointed out as their low-efficient walking motion, so more efficient legged walking robot and its control are needed. In such a background, we have tried to develop Passive Dynamic Walking robot design procedure with the aim of optimized design between the hardware structure and control. In this paper we propose a design procedure which applies the adaptive function embedded in Passive Dynamic Walking, and also investigate its effectiveness. Then we try to extend the legged robot design to limit cycle walking control.