Development of semi-passive biped walking robot embedded with CPG-based locomotion control

Abstract

A planar biped robot that can generate continuous walking with body pose information is presented in this paper. It employs semi-passive structure, which consists of five links connected by two active hip joints and two passive knee joints, in order to mimic human-like walking motion utilizing the principle of pendulum dynamics. Besides, a specialized passive joint is proposed and installed at both knee parts of the developed robot. It is able to keep the knee joint stretched during stance phase, and to assist its passive bending motion during swing phase respectively. A CPG (Central Pattern Generator) controller exploiting sensory feedback of a body pose sensor was used for generating walking motion. The experimental walking motion by using the developed robot system embedded with the CPG-based controller is demonstrated.