Evolution of Research on Legged Locomotion.

Bio-inspired Legged Locomotion

Metastable Legged-Robot Locomotion

A variety of impressive approaches to legged locomotion exist; however, the science of legged robotics is still far from demonstrating a solution which performs with a level of flexibility, reliability and careful foot placement that would enable practical locomotion on the variety of rough and intermittent terrain humans negotiate with ease on a regular basis. In this thesis, we strive toward ...

Elastic Actuation for Legged Locomotion

The inherent elasticity of dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) gives this technology great potential in energy efficient locomotion applications. In this work, a modular double cone DEA is developed with reduced manufacturing and maintenance time costs. This actuator can lift 45 g of mass (5 times its own weight) while producing a stroke of 10.4 mm (23.6% its height). The contribution of the ...

Legless locomotion for legged robots

We propose a locomotion technique for a legged robot that is high-centered, i.e., a robot stuck on a block with its legs dangling in air. By using its legs as reaction masses, the robot might be able to rock and roll on its stomach and incrementally move forward off the block, a form of legless locomotion using halteres. With locomotion of high-centered robots using body attitude oscillations a...

Mechanical aspects of legged locomotion control.

We review the mechanical components of an approach to motion science that enlists recent progress in neurophysiology, biomechanics, control systems engineering, and non-linear dynamical systems to explore the integration of muscular, skeletal, and neural mechanics that creates effective locomotor behavior. We use rapid arthropod terrestrial locomotion as the model system because of the wealth o...