Jared M Moore
ABSTRACT
Muscle and tendon elasticity enables animals to interact with their environment softly, reducing ground impact force and increasing efficiency of locomotion. Traditional rigid body robots remain the commercially viable option, but incorporating flexibility can harness the benefits exhibited by natural organisms. In this paper, we examine how the addition of passive flexibility impacts performance and locomotive efficiency in a quadruped animat. Results show that the addition of flexibility in the spine and lower limbs of a quadruped animat significantly increases the distance traveled compared to a fully rigid-body animat. However, replacing these passively flexibile joints with actively controlled joints results in the farthest traveling individuals while maintaining similar efficiency. It appears that increases in DOF and joint configuration are the drivers of performance increases rather than passive flexibility.
- J. Ackerman and J. Seipel. Energy efficiency of legged robot locomotion with elastically suspended loads. IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 29(2):321--330, 2013. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- A. J. Clark, J. M. Moore, J. Wang, X. Tan, and P. K. McKinley. Evolutionary design and experimental validation of a flexible caudal fin for robotic fish. In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems, pages 325--332, East Lansing, Michigan, USA, 2012.Google ScholarCross Ref
- F.-M. De Rainville, F.-A. Fortin, M.-A. Gardner, M. Parizeau, and C. Gagné. Deap: A python framework for evolutionary algorithms. In Proceedings of the 14th Annual Conference Companion on Genetic and Evolutionary Computation, pages 85--92, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, 2012. ACM. Google ScholarDigital Library
- J. M. Moore, C. P. McGowan, and P. K. McKinley. Evaluating the effect of a flexible spine on the evolution of quadrupedal gaits. In Proceedings of the 13th European Conference on Artificial Life, pages 166--173, York, UK, 2015.Google ScholarCross Ref
- T. Seo and M. Sitti. Tank-like module-based climbing robot using passive compliant joints. IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, 18(1):397--408, 2013.Google ScholarCross Ref
- R. Smith. Open Dynamics Engine, http://www.ode.org/, 2013.Google Scholar
Index Terms
- Bend and flex: passive flexibility or active control in a quadruped animat
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