A study of flexible shoe system for biped robot

We have extended the idea of passive walking from the viewpoint of energetic efficiency, to realize medical, nursing and home-use robots. In this paper, we propose flexible shoe system to apply passive walking manner to ordinary humanoid biped. This flexible shoe system works as an arc-shaped foot. Besides, a 2DOF(Feedforward & Feedback) control scheme is used in this system, that realizes walking with less ankle torque. Computer simulation study confirmed that this shoe system reduces about 80% of energy consumption of ankle joint in some cases. Using an actual small biped, we also confirmed that suitable stiffness shoes reduce about 8% of walking energy of the robot.