On the effect of semielliptical foot shape on the energetic efficiency of passive bipedal gait
Aikaterini Smyrli, Mehdi Ghiassi, Andrés Kecskeméthy, Evangelos Papadopoulos
Abstract
This paper studies the effects of varying rollover curvature on the passive dynamic gait of a biped walker. The dynamic model of a compliant biped robot is extended with the implementation of semielliptical feet, to mimic human rollingradius progression during a step. The process of modeling the semielliptical foot shape and integrating its kinematics to the biped’s dynamics is presented in detail. The passive dynamic behavior of the biped for elliptic feet of various dimensions is investigated through numerical simulations to provide results about gait stability, walking speed, energetic efficiency, and impact force levels. The concept of energetic efficiency in passive walking is discussed thoroughly, and an efficiency comparison methodology is proposed. Finally, it is shown that the biomimetically-inspired semielliptical foot profile can lead to higher gait efficiency. The results of this study can be used to optimize energetic efficiency in biped walking machines and/or gait assisting prosthetic equipment by means of foot shape optimization.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{iros2019_ontheeffectofsem,
title = {On the effect of semielliptical foot shape on the energetic efficiency of passive bipedal gait},
author = {Aikaterini Smyrli and Mehdi Ghiassi and Andrés Kecskeméthy and Evangelos Papadopoulos},
booktitle = {IROS 2019},
year = {2019}
}