This paper investigates the possible sources of stochasticity and their relative role in metastability of legged locomotion in its simplest form. Passive locomotion of a rimless wheel suggests that stochasticity is an intrinsic–and thus unavoidable– property of legged locomotion. Numerical test results of several hypotheses have been presented on the source of stochasticity of walking: the stoc...

Simplified models of limit-cycle walking on flat terrain have provided important insights into the nature of legged locomotion. Real walking robots (and humans), however, do not exhibit true limit cycle dynamics because terrain, even in a carefully designed laboratory setting, is inevitably non-flat. Walking systems on stochastically rough terrain may not satisfy strict conditions for limit-cyc...

Rationale: Development of string rails with low weight per meter and high-performance characteristics that determine durability, wear resistance, reliable grip vehicle wheels to the rail rolling surface is a vital task.
 Objective: investigate impact geometric parameters steel wheel flexible polymer coating on performance characteristics; choose most optimal contact pair wheel-rail.
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This paper proposes a novel method for generating a dynamic gait based on anterior-posterior asymmetric impact posture tilting the robot’s center of mass forward. The primary purpose of this method is to asymmetrize the impact posture by actuating the robot’s telescopic-legs to make overcoming the potential barrier at mid-stance easy, and the mechanical energy is accordingly restored. First, we...

Clutches have been used in internal combustion vehicles and concentrated electric vehicles (EVs) to smoothen impulsion while starting and shifting. This paper proposes a permanent magnet bi-stable electromagnetic clutch unit (PMBECU) which is specially introduced into in-wheel EVs to make the rigid connection between hub and wheel more flexible. Firstly, the operation principle of the PMBECU is...

A rimless wheel or a without rim, is the simplest example of legged robot and an ideal testbed to understand mechanics locomotion. This paper presents design, modeling, control differential drive that achieves straight-line movement turning. The design comprises central axis with two 10-spoked springy wheels on either side body houses electronics, motors, transmission, computers, batteries. To ...

Passive dynamic bipeds were first studied by McGeer (McGeer, 1990) as inspired by a bipedal toy described in (McMahon, 1984). Passive dynamic walkers can walk down a shallow slope without actuators and controllers(McGeer, 1990; 1993). McGeer has built passive walkers that exhibit steady motion using a Poincaré map, which he called as a stride function, to analyze the gaits(McGeer, 1990; 1993). ...

We refine and advance a notion of parallel composition to achieve for the first time a stability proof and empirical demonstration of a steady-state gait on a highly coupled 3DOF legged platform controlled by two simple (decoupled) feedback laws that provably stabilize in isolation two simple 1DOF mechanical subsystems. Specifically, we stabilize a limit cycle on a tailed monoped to excite sust...