Simple model of underactuated walking robot

Abstract

The paper deals with an initial design of a simple mechanical model of an underactuated walking robot. The mechanical model was built in order to verify already developed control algorithms for underactuated walking robots. Indeed, in simulations, these algorithms can guarantee that the model will produce a motion resembling human walking. Nevertheless, they were not verified in an application of a real underactuated walking robot control. The presented simple mechanical model consists of two mechanical legs connected in a hip via actuators. Each leg is composed of two links equipped with an actuator in order to bend or straighten the leg. Printed circuit boards (PCB) were designed and mounted on each link in order to control the attached actuator and measure states of the corresponding link. Each PCB is equipped with a microprocessor, a CPLD, a full bridge driver, a gyroscope sensor, A/D converters and a CAN bus driver.