Bipedal Running: Bioinspired Fundamentals for versatile Humanoid Robot Locomotion

The field of humanoid robots has grown in recent years with several companies and research laboratories developing new humanoid systems. However, the number of running robots did not noticeably rise. Despite the need for fast locomotion to quickly serve given tasks, which require traversing complex terrain by running and jumping over obstacles. To provide an overview of the design of humanoid robots with bioinspired mechanisms, this paper introduces the fundamental functions of the human running gait. The paper surveys multiple concepts, i.e. to protect the system against impacts, store kinetic energy at touchdown, use natural dynamics, and transfer energy between joints through couplings. The understanding of the fundamental functions can support engineers to design versatile humanoid robots, without sacrificing versatility against capability.