A study of energy-saving shoes for robot considering 3D motion

In this paper, we propose flexible shoe system for biped robot to optimize energy consumption of sagittal and lateral plane motion. This shoe system is made to deform decline outside in lateral plane and it can absorb the kinetic energy of the robot in lateral plane. Besides, this system supports sagittal plane motion like a rocking chair. Furthermore, this hardware (shoes) and software (controller) can be easily applicable to the ordinary walking robot system. The effectiveness and characteristics of this system is confirmed by computer simulations and experimental result. It is confirmed that stiffness of shoe is very important parameter for energy consumption