Dynamic locomotion of quadruped with laterally parallel leaf spring spine

摘要

We focus on use of the movement of the spine in animal locomotion and propose a spinal mechanism to realize dynamic spine-source locomotion. The proposed mechanism is composed of two sets of a leaf spring with a dedicated motor used to bend the spring, with these sets being placed laterally in parallel. This mechanism can realize deformation of the spine including bending and twisting and can release large amounts of elastic energy instantaneously. We equipped a quadruped robot with the proposed spinal mechanism and examined how motion changes with the motion of the spinal mechanism and legs. The robot realized rapid running up to 1.0667 m/s. The difference of the actuation between the right side and left side of the spine derived a variety of rapid and spine-source locomotion modes that changed the running direction. In addition, the timing of the simple motion of the legs further expanded the diversity of the spine-source locomotion.