5 accepted papers
Since the late 19th century when the first walking toys were developed, it has been known that mechanical stoppers at the hip joint are crucial for generating stable passive dynamic walking. Recent research on passive-dynamic and limit-cycle walkers has also confirmed that mechanical stoppers at the…
This paper addresses the problem of realizing a novel robotic bipedal locomotion called wheel gait, which is achieved by rotating the stance and swing legs in the same direction. First, a model of a planar 3-DOF X-shaped walker with a reaction wheel is introduced, and the mathematical equations are…
The movement of the legs involves the interaction between the feet and the ground. Consequently, most animals possess a wide variety of foot morphologies and multifunctional capabilities. The selection and switching of these foot functions are passive and environment-dependent, ensuring environmenta…
This paper proposes novel passive-dynamic walk-ers formed by two cross-shaped frames and eight viscoelastic elements. Since it is a combination of two four-legged rimless wheels via viscoelastic elements, we call it viscoelastically-combined rimless wheel (VCRW). Two types of VCRWs consisting of dif…
This paper introduces a planar tensegrity robot that walks passively and cyclically on a gentle downhill, where its gait versatility can be strengthened by applying actuation forces on the connection cables. The novelty of this work is that we design the structure of this passive robot inspired by t…