Using parallel stiffness to achieve improved locomotive efficiency with the Sandia STEPPR robot
Anirban Mazumdar, Steven Spencer, Jonathan Salton, Clinton Hobart, Joshua Love, Kevin Dullea, Michael Kuehl, Timothy Blada
Abstract
In this paper we introduce STEPPR (Sandia Transmission-Efficient Prototype Promoting Research), a bipedal robot designed to explore efficient bipedal walking. The initial iteration of this robot achieves efficient motions through powerful electromagnetic actuators and highly back-drivable synthetic rope transmissions. We show how the addition of parallel elastic elements at select joints is predicted to provide substantial energetic benefits: reducing cost of transport by 30 to 50 percent. Two joints in particular, hip roll and ankle pitch, reduce dissipated power over three very different gait types: human walking, human-like robot walking, and crouched robot walking. Joint springs based on this analysis are tested and validated experimentally. Finally, this paper concludes with the design of two unique parallel spring mechanisms to be added to the current STEPPR robot in order to provide improved locomotive efficiency.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{icra2015_usingparallelsti,
title = {Using parallel stiffness to achieve improved locomotive efficiency with the Sandia STEPPR robot},
author = {Anirban Mazumdar and Steven Spencer and Jonathan Salton and Clinton Hobart and Joshua Love and Kevin Dullea and Michael Kuehl and Timothy Blada and Morgan Quigley and Jesper Smith and Sylvain Bertrand and Tingfan Wu and Jerry Pratt and Stephen Buerger},
booktitle = {ICRA 2015},
year = {2015}
}