Planning and Analysis of Centroid Fluctuation Gait for Hydraulic Hexapod Robot[−2pt]

Energy consumption is an important comprehensive index of the hydraulic hexapod robot (HHR). In this paper, the kinematics model and the hydraulic system energy consumption model of HHR are established. In order to reduce the energy consumption, a centroid fluctuation gait that adds the movement of the centroid in the vertical direction is proposed. Then the gait parameters such as step length, gait cycle, average centroid height, centroid fluctuation height, and phase that influence the energy consumption are studied which could provide a theoretical basis for parameter optimization. In the same gait parameters, compared with using constant height gait, the energy consumption of HHR using centroid fluctuation gait is generally reduced, and the maximum energy saving can be more than 10%. Finally, a virtual prototype is used to verify the effectiveness of the proposed methods.