Design and development of a cheetah robot under the neural mechanism controlling the leg's muscles

The high speed running of legged robot raise higher requirements on the design and development of the robot and the control method. The mammals' excellent performance, especially the cheetah, provides us much inspiration on control, mechanical design and etc. In this paper, a model of the cheetah robot is developed for researching the locomotory behaviors of fast running. Under the biological knowledge on neural mechanism, a new bio-inspired control method was proposed via controlling the muscles flexion and extension movements. Then, a bio-musculoskeletal hindlimb prototype was designed in this paper. The muscle-like actuator and the cheetah-like structure combining the bio-control approach provide more natural fashion for the new robot. Finally, the simulation of the bounding gait establishes good biological properties, cheetah-like leg's trajectory. Experiment with the real hindlimb prototype validates the design and the development of the structure and the controller. In the near future, a final prototype will be manufactured with onboard power and air source.