Stabilization of Biped Walking and Acquisition of Landing Surface Position Information Using Foot Mechanism with Shock Absorbing Material.

Abstract

As the first stage of biped walking adapting to an unknown uneven surface using an anthropomorphic biped walking robot, this paper introduces a special foot mechanism with shock absorbing material that stabilizes biped walking and acquires position information on the landing surface. The new foot has three functions: (1) a function to obtain information on the position relative to a landing surface; (2) a function to absorb the shock of the foot's landing; (3) a function to stabilize changes in the support leg. Two units of the foot mechanism were produced, a biped walking robot WL-12 RVI that had the foot mechanism installed inside it was developed, and a walking experiment with WL-12 RVI was performed. As a result, decreased vibration around the pitch axis, decreased torque demands on ankle actuators on the pitch axis, increased dynamic biped walking success probability, and acquired landing surface information was achieved.