A study of the effect of structural damping on gait stability in quadrupedal locomotion using a musculoskeletal robot

This study reports on a feasibility study on the stability of gait patterns with changeable body stiffness. The periodic motions of the legs are generated as a rhythmic motion. The stability of locomotion strongly depends on the mechanical properties of the body mechanism, especially joint stiffness. In this report, the muscle tone of the robot's motion at the trunk can be changed by using the changeable elasticity of pneumatic actuators. The stability of quadruped locomotion in crawl, trot and pace patterns with changeable body stiffness was evaluated with hardware experiments. As well, the stabilization mechanism is approximated by a simple two-inertia model and analyzed with numerical simulations.