The focus of this paper is the problem of foot rotation in biped robots during the single support phase. Foot rotation is an indication of postural instability and should be carefully treated in a dynamically stable walk and avoided altogether in a statically stable walk. We introduce the foot rotation indicator (FRI) point which is a point on the foot/ground contact surface where the net groun...

We propose a constructive control design for stabilization of non-periodic trajectories of underactuated mechanical systems. An important example of such a system is an underactuated “dynamic walking” biped robot walking over rough terrain. The proposed technique is to compute a transverse linearization about the desired motion: a linear impulsive system which locally represents dynamics about ...

This paper presents the experimental validation of a framework for the systematic design, analysis, and performance enhancement of controllers that induce stable walking in N link underactuated planar biped robots. Controllers designed via this framework act by enforcing virtual constraints— holonomic constraints imposed via feedback—on the robot’s configuration which create an attracting two-d...

Our first aim is to develop a systematic method to estimate energy consumption of bipedal locomotion. This method is then used to evaluate the performance of materials and actuators that could be used for the design of a biped robot. Moreover, with this analysis we also demonstrated the importance of having good joint trajectories in order to reduce energy consumption. Results collected are the...

In this paper we address the problem of energy optimal gait generation for biped robots Using a sim pli ed robot dynamics that ignores the e ects of cen tripetal forces we obtain unconstrained optimal tra jectories generated by piecewise constant inputs We study a complete gait cycle comprising single support double support and the transition phases The energy optimal gaits for di erent step le...

We examine the control problem of curve-tracking for fully-actuated mechanical systems, applied to walking robots. First, we discuss earlier results on curve-tracking using a change of coordinates to split the kinetic energy in a desired and an undesired part. Then, we apply and extend these results to the case of a compass-gait biped, and show in a simulation how its robustness against surface...

Humanoid biped robots are typically complex in design, having numerous Degrees‐of‐Freedom (DOF) due to the ambitious goal of mimicking the human gait. The paper proposes a new architecture for a biped robot with seven DOF per each leg and one DOF corresponding to the toe joint. Furthermore, this work presents close equations for the forward and inverse kinematics by divid...

Despite many efforts in the development and control of two-legged robots, nature’s solution of biped walking is still unequaled. Both the mechanical side and neural control surpass what robotics research has come up with. While the properties of the biological locomotion apparatus are fairly well understood, still there seems no technical solution for an equivalent actuation system. Unfortunate...

We propose a constructive control design for stabilization of non-periodic trajectories of underactuated robots. An important example of such a system is an underactuated “dynamic walking” biped robot traversing rough or uneven terrain. The stabilization problem is inherently challenging due to the nonlinearity, open-loop instability, hybrid (impact) dynamics, and target motions which are not k...

Recently, a lot of research has been conducted in the area of biped walking robots that could be compared to human beings. The aim of this article is to control a new planar biped robot by means of an adaptive procedure. The newly designed robot is able to move on its heel like a human. After derivation of dynamic equations of motion for two states of the robot, namely, “supporting leg and trun...