Stabilization of quasi-passive pneumatic muscle walker

Abstract

A passive dynamic walker can walk down a inclined floor without any actuators. When the passive dynamic walking is modified to use actuators, it is called "quasi-passive walking". This locomotion is efficient in energy consumption. In this study, a pneumatic muscle actuator is used for quasi-passive walking. It is more difficult to control the pneumatic actuator than the usual electric motor. One of the approaches to realize stable walking with pneumatic actuators is a design of the robot such that the dynamics of the robot are operated by simple controller. In this paper, a simple control law is proposed, and the relationship between input and output by real biped robot is observed. We also check the performance of the control by observing that the robot descends a small difference in level.