Development of A Parallel-elastic Robot Leg for Loaded Jumping

He, Zewen; Meng, Fei; Fan, Xiaochen; Kang, Rongxue; Liu, Shengkai; Liu, Huaxin; Yu, Zhangguo; Qin, Mingyue; Ming, Aiguo

doi:10.1109/icarm.2019.8833920

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…First, the knee joint actuator rotates relative to the trunk in the parallel case rather than relative to the thigh, which causes extra inertia for the hip joint. Second, on our robot, as identical thigh and shank lengths were selected for the maximum vertical movement range [23], we found that parallel mechanism has similar torque and speed requirements for the two active joints during the vertical jumping simulation. Thus, we could use two same actuators in active joints.…”

Section: Robotic System Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To balance the requirements of both load supporting ability and dynamic locomotion function, an integrated legged robot system including hardware design and control strategy is plainly needed. In previous work [23], we proposed a parallel-elastic legged robot for loaded jumping. In this paper, focusing on controllable vertical hopping, we describe the development of the parallel legged robot with a high-performance actuator, and use current-torque control on the actuator to implement VMC on the leg; this approach does not require an extra torque sensor but can provide active compliance in jumping and landing.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Controllable Height Hopping of a Parallel Legged Robot

Meng

Chen

et al. 2021

Applied Sciences

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Legged robots imitating animals have become versatile and applicable in more application scenarios recent years. Most of their functions rely on powerful athletic abilities, which require the robots to have remarkable actuator capacities and controllable dynamic performance. In most experimental demonstrations, continuous hopping at a desired height is a basic required motion for legged robots to verify their athletic ability. However, recent legged robots have limited ability in balance of high torque output and actuator transparency and appropriate structure size at the same time. Therefore, in our research, we developed a parallel robot leg using a brushless direct current motor combined with a harmonic driver, without extra force or torque sensor feedback, which uses virtual model control (VMC) to realize active compliance on the leg, and a whole-leg control system with dynamics modeling and parameter optimization for continuous vertical hopping at a desired height. In our experiments, the robot was able to maintain stability during vertical hopping while following a variable reference height in various ground situations.

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Section: Robotic System Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Controllable Height Hopping of a Parallel Legged Robot

Meng

Chen

et al. 2021

Applied Sciences

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“…Taking these factors into account, a self-developed motor was selected to drive the joints. Its power density was 808.82 W/kg, which corresponded to the top level in the same specification [ 28 ]. In addition, when the reduction ratio was increased, the output torque became larger and the speed was reduced.…”

Section: Structural Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The control system of our robot consists of an Industrial Personal Computer (IPC) as an upper computer to execute real-time planning and information processing and an Elmo Motor Driver as a lower controller to support the underlying position control of motors. Between the IPC and drivers, a CAN bus was adopted as a transmission mode [ 28 ]. The robot has eight active joints, and each of these joints is equipped with an incremental encoder (RMB20IC).…”

Section: Structural Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Structural Design and Crawling Pattern Generator of a Planar Quadruped Robot for High-Payload Locomotion

Kang

Meng

Chen

et al. 2020

Sensors

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Load capacity is an important index to reflect the practicability of legged robots. Existing research into quadruped robots has not analyzed their load performance in terms of their structural design and control method from a systematic point of view. This paper proposes a structural design method and crawling pattern generator for a planar quadruped robot that can realize high-payload locomotion. First, the functions required to evaluate the leg’s load capacity are established, and quantitative comparative analyses of the candidates are performed to select the leg structure with the best load capacity. We also propose a highly integrated design method for a driver module to improve the robot’s load capacity. Second, in order to realize stable load locomotion, a novel crawling pattern generator based on trunk swaying is proposed which can realize lateral center of mass (CoM) movement by adjusting the leg lengths on both sides to change the CoM projection in the trunk width direction. Finally, loaded crawling simulations and experiments performed with our self-developed quadruped robot show that stable crawling with load ratios exceeding 66% can be realized, thus verifying the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method.

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