Analysis and Control of a Dissipative Spring-Mass Hopper with Torque Actuation

Abstract

It has long been established that simple springmass models can accurately represent the dynamics of legged locomotion. Existing work in this domain, however, almost exclusively focuses on the idealized Spring-Loaded Inverted Pendulum (SLIP) model and neglects passive dissipative effects unavoidable in any physical robot or animal. In this paper, we extend on a recently proposed analytic approximation to the stance trajectories of a dissipative SLIP model to analyze stability properties of a planar hopper with a single rotary actuator at the hip.