Modeling human-like joint behavior with mechanical and active stiffness

Abstract

The bipedal locomotion has become a research topic of great interest over the last decades. Several groups have realized dynamic walking on afore known terrain. Our goal is to realize dynamicwalking and running in rough terrain. Beside the control of the highly dynamic and unstable motion, the actuator itself is still an open research topic. The main task of such an actuator is to supply the system with energy to compensate losses due to internal friction and environmental impact. In slow walking speeds this share is very low. Several so-called passive walkers have shown that there is no need for an actuator, if the energy loss is compensated by transforming potential energy into kinetic energy [13, 4]. But in more dynamic motions like running and jumping, however, a powerful actuator is essential.