Design and experimental study of a compliant feet quadruped robot with closed-chain mechanism legs

Abstract

The locomotion performances of a quadruped robot with compliant feet based on closed-chain mechanism legs are presented. The legs of this quadruped robot were made up of six-bar linkage mechanism with one degree of freedom. And a special foot trajectory could be gained through kinematic analysis and optimum design of the six-bar linkage mechanism. In order to reduce the impact force of quadruped robot's walking on the ground, two semicircle feet with different thickness were designed as compliant feet. The experimental results of this quadruped robot with different stiffness feet showed that the semicircle feet could reduce the driving torque and current of motors. This primary investigation illustrated that the compliant feet could improve the locomotion performance of a quadruped robot based on closed-chain mechanism legs.