A humanoid mini-walking robot with a stick

This paper describes a compact mini-walking robot with Barbie's shape, and its walking is realized with only one actuator. The first remarkable feature of this robot is the total weight and dimension of the proposed mechanism is expected to be lighter and smaller than other mini-walking robots. Secondly, the proposed leg mechanism in the robot can work smoothly as human with only one DOF. The model of this mini-walking robot can be expressed as a walking leg mechanism with a stick. The leg mechanism has been designed to avoid foot interference during walk, and to ensure that at least one foot touches the ground all the time. The stick helps the robot move around stably, support most of weight of the robot, and avoid overpressure on legs. Moreover, a dynamic structural model is developed in SimMechanism toolboxes of Pro/Engineer to analyze parameters, simulate leg mechanism, solve gait problems, and ensure that the robot gait can be more similar to humans. Finally, leg simulation results and real walking figures are given to verify the feasibility of the proposed mechanism and the performance of the humanoid robot.