Softer legs allow a modular hexapod to run faster

J Sastra, Shai Revzen, M Yim

Climbing and Walking Robotics (CLAWAR), 2012

Abstract

We describe a bioinspired hexpedal robot that uses only 7 motors and is built from CKBot modular robot modules. The robot has elastic 2-DOF legs whose stiffness falls in the biologically relevant range, allowing it to run dynamically. We used gradient search to optimize the running gait parameters on two sets of legs with different stiffness. Surprisingly, the softer legs run 16% faster at a gait frequency 11% lower - contradicting the simple design intuition that more rigid legs and higher gait frequencies are key to faster running.

BibTeX

@conference{sastra-2012-clawar,
  author = {Sastra, J and Revzen, Shai and Yim, M},
  title = {Softer legs allow a modular hexapod to run faster},
  booktitle = {Climbing and Walking Robotics (CLAWAR)},
  year = {2012},
  doi = {10.1142/9789814415958_0065},
  cvtopic = {design}
}