Adaptive foot design for small quadruped robots

Abstract

Biologically inspired robots that are used for research of the animal and the technological realm become more and more refined. Control schemes for sensor-less and sensorized robots were developed, are able to handle torque control and sometimes even adapt to a changing task set. Further mechanics and electronics have evolved and take part in more reliable and robust bio-inspired robots. Robots reproduce animal structures or use bio-mechanical principles to excel in a specific task. Never the less, during this evolution of robots the feet were often oversimplified compared to their animal counterparts. Our current work centers around the foot as a bio-mechanically complex but extremely important end-effector.