Ballistic flip of a planar one-legged robot in simulation

The typical locomotive gaits of previous one-legged robots are imitations of some animal's motions (e.g., a kangaroo's hop). As a result of million years of evolution, animals' motion forms may be optimal for their particular flexible structures. However, their motion manners may be not the best option in the case of man-made mechanical structures mainly composed of rigid hardware. Therefore, from an engineering viewpoint, we propose a novel conception of one-legged flip locomotion that seems straightforward and streamline for a simple one-legged biped. By means of nonlinear feedback control and Poincare map method, cyclic flip gaits of this robot model are found in simulation.