Optimal Jumps for Biarticular Legged Robots

Abstract

This paper investigates the extent to which biarticular actuation mechanisms-antagonistic actuation schemes with spring stiffness that extend over two joints, similar in function to biarticular muscles found in legged animals-improve the performance of jumping and other fast explosive robot movements. Robust gradient-based optimization algorithms that take into account the dynamic properties and various contact and actuator constraints of biarticular systems are developed. We then quantitatively evaluate the gains in jumping vis-a-vis conventional joint actuation schemes. We also examine the effects of biarticular link stiffness and link mass distributions on the jumping performance of the biarticular mechanism.