D.J. Braun, Jason E. Mitchell and M. Goldfarb, Actuated Dynamic Walking in a Seven-Link Biped Robot, IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, vol. 17, no.1, pp. 147-156, 2012.
The authors have previously described a method for enabling fully actuated biped walking without prescribing joint angle trajectories or imposing kinematic constraints between joints. This method was hypothesized to offer a more natural-looking bipedal gait and a higher locomotive efficiency relative to methods requiring accurate joint trajectory tracking. In this paper, the authors present experimental evidence to support both hypotheses. Specifically, the authors describe the design of a seven- link bipedal robot appropriate for the previously proposed control method; present the implementation of the “nonkinematic” control approach on the biped robot; demonstrate (with data, photographic sequences, and video) the “relaxed” style of walking resulting from the control method; and experimentally characterize the locomotive efficiency of the biped in terms of the mechanical cost of transport. The latter results are compared to corresponding measures reported elsewhere in the literature.