Study of a Bipedal Robot with Elastic Elements

The goal of this paper is to investigate the influence of linear elastic elements on the gait of a technical, bipedal robot model. For the study a multibody simulation model is applied with the geometry and topology based on the humanoid robot Johnnie. The actuation of the system is inspired by the concept of limit cycle walkers. Therefore elastic elements and actuation is added to the model. The undefined parameters are identified using numerical optimisation. The resulting model configuration is analysed with respect to biological aspects, stability considerations as well as energy consumption. Finally, a comparison of the model to biology, humanoids and limit-cycle walkers is presented.