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Design and Dynamic Analysis of a Compliant Leg Configuration towards the Biped Robot’s Spring-Like Walking

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Abstract

The spring-loaded inverted pendulum (SLIP) model has been proven successfully applied to implement spring-like walking for biped robots. This work presents a compliant leg configuration that can meet the requirements of the SLIP model. The leg is characterized by the fact that most of the mass is concentrated in the hip, and the leg is spring-like and light in weight. Numerical models were introduced to analyze the stiffness of the leg, and its dynamic characteristics with the mass of the leg being taken into account. Using the proposed model, the analysis on the stiffness showed that the leg could be taken as a variable stiffness spring with respect to the length of the leg, the longer the leg, the greater the stiffness. In addition to this, it suggested that the mass of the leg should be maintained below one-tenth of the mass concentrated in the hip to perform spring-like walking. Experiments regarding the stiffness and dynamic characteristics showed a good agreement with the simulation results, thus verifying the presented leg configuration and the numerical models. Afterwards, experiments were conducted on vertical jumps of the leg, demonstrating the feasibility of the leg to perform the biped’s spring-like walking, regardless of being at a certain speed, or at varying speeds.

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Funding

This work was supported by NSFC Project (No. 51905495, No.51821093, No.51890885), the China Postdoctoral Project (No. 2020 M671821), NSF Project of Zhejiang Province (No. LQ20E050009, No. LQ21F030003), and the National Key Research and Development Project (2018YFB2001203).

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Author notes

  1. Guifu Luo and Ruilong Du contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power and Mechatronic Systems, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, China

    Guifu Luo & Hua Zhou

  2. Intelligent Robot Research Center, Zhejiang Lab, Hangzhou, China

    Ruilong Du, Shiqiang Zhu, Sumian Song & Haihui Yuan

  3. Department of Automation, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Ruilong Du, Haihui Yuan & Mingguo Zhao

  4. Department of Electrical Engineering, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

    Jason Gu

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  1. Guifu Luo
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Contributions

Guifu Luo and Ruilong Du designed the study, performed the research, analyzed data, and wrote the paper. They contributed equally to this work.

Shiqiang Zhu contributed to the design of the test rig, helped performed the analysis with constructive discussions.

Sumian Song and Haihui Yuan wrote and debugged the code, helped conduct the experiment and analyze data.

Hua Zhou contributed to the manuscript preparation, helped perform the analysis with constructive discussions.

Mingguo Zhao and Jason Gu contributed to the improvement of the manuscript quality, helped perform the analysis with constructive discussions.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Ruilong Du, Sumian Song, Haihui Yuan or Hua Zhou.

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Research supported by NSFC Project (No. 51905495, No.51821093, No.51890885), the China Postdoctoral Project (No. 2020M671821), NSF Project of Zhejiang Province (No. LQ20E050009, No. LQ21F030003), and the National Key Research and Development Project (2018YFB2001203).

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Luo, G., Du, R., Zhu, S. et al. Design and Dynamic Analysis of a Compliant Leg Configuration towards the Biped Robot’s Spring-Like Walking. J Intell Robot Syst 104, 64 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-022-01614-3

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