Supervised learning is used to build a control policy for robust, dynamic walking of an underactuated bipedal robot. The training and testing sets consist of controllers based on a full dynamic model, virtual constraints, and parameter optimization to meet torque limits, friction cone, and environmental conditions. The controllers are designed to induce periodic walking gaits at various speeds,...

In this study, the therapeutic effects of backward walking were examined. [Subjects and Methods] In all, 16 subjects were randomly assigned to an experimental group and 17 to a control group. All subjects walked barefoot on a treadmill (HM50EX, Daeho, Korea) for 20 min, five times per week, for a total of 4 weeks. The average gait velocity of the subjects was 3 km/h on a 10% slope. The experime...

Passive dynamic walking refers to a class of bipedal machines that are able to walk down a gentle slope with no external control or energy input. The legs swing naturally as pendula, and conservation of angular momentum governs the contact of the swing foot with the ground. Previous machines have been limited to planar motions. We extend the planar motions to allow for tilting side to side (rol...

Humanoid robot has been developed for human’s convenience in the human environment. Humanoid robots like ASIMO, HRP, WABIAN and Johnnie were successively developed (Hirai et al., 1998; Yamaguchi et al., 1999; Kajita et al., 2003; Löffler et al, 2003). Researches on humanoid have been done about balancing, walking pattern generation, motion generation, whole body cooperation and so on. In partic...

We report on our progress in extending the behavioral repertoire of RHex, a compliant leg hexapod robot. We introduce two new controllers, one for climbing constant slope inclinations and one for achieving higher speeds via pronking, a gait that incorporates a, substantial aerial phase. In both cases, we make use of an underlying open-loop control strategy, combined with low bandwidth feedback ...

Denervation of the synergists of the medial gastrocnemius (MG) muscle in the cat hind leg results in a progressive increase in the magnitude of burst activity in the MG muscle during walking. The increase in burst magnitude is associated with an increase in the slope of the relationship between the magnitude of individual MG bursts and the amplitude of ankle flexion during stance. This finding ...