Impact Analysis as a Design Tool for the Legs of Mobile Robots

Abstract

This paper investigates the kinetic energy lost in a perfectly plastic collision of a robot with a stationary environment. The analysis is applied in particular to the design of legs for mobile robots that will result in minimal energy loss when impacting the terrain. The generalized inertia ellipsoid is presented as a visualization tool for comparing different leg configurations and different designs. Finally, these techniques are applied to a simplified example of an articulated leg.