On the Design and Development of Musculoskeletal Bipedal Robots

Abstract

Bio-inspired musculoskeletal bipedal robots with tendon driven series elastic actuation including biarticular structures have the potential to outperform rigidly actuated robots. But the design, the control and the tuning of these bio-inspired robots are more complex than for their rigidly actuated counterparts. In this thesis new approaches to solving the problems arising from the bio-inspired design of robots are proposed and evaluated using a prototype series of musculoskeletal bipedal robots developed in the BioBiped project. This includes a systematic approach to tuning of hardware and software parameters in a hardware-in-the-loop optimization process with increased efficiency through the use of expert knowledge.