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Conversion of Elastic Energy Stored in the Legs of a Hexapod Robot into Propulsive Force

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Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems (Living Machines 2022)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 13548))

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Abstract

The conversion of elastic energy due to ground reaction force into propulsive force can help increase the locomotion speed of a legged robot. Many legged robots inspired by animals have been developed, which utilize the elasticity of their legs to increase the efficiency of locomotion. An example is RHex, a hexapod robot that has C-shaped legs. These robots are designed using the spring loaded inverted pendulum (SLIP) model. In contrast, we proposed a new leg design (i.e., D-shaped leg) and an optimization method in which the speed can be increased by kicking the ground strongly in the opposite direction of locomotion due to the elastic force accumulated in the legs. An experiment with a hexapod robot demonstrated that the walking speed could be increased by up to 89% compared to the speed obtained by C-shaped legs. This result can be applied to the design of hands, grippers, and robot bodies to store external force in the flexible body, introduce new functions, and improve performance.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Octopus, a Grasshopper plug-in: https://www.food4rhino.com/en/app/octopus.

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Acknowledgement

Supported by KAKENHI Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas “Science of Soft Robot” project funded by JSPS under Grant Number 18H05467, and Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) under Grant Number 21H01289.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Textile Science and Technology, Shinshu University, 3-15-1 Tokida, Ueda City, Nagano, 386-8567, Japan

    Atsushi Kaneko & Takuya Umedachi

  2. Department of Systems Innovation, Graduate School of Engineering Science, Osaka University, 1-2 Machikaneyama-machi, Toyonaka, Osaka, 560-0043, Japan

    Masahiro Shimizu

Authors
  1. Atsushi Kaneko
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  2. Masahiro Shimizu
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  3. Takuya Umedachi
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Atsushi Kaneko .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA

    Alexander Hunt

  2. Technology Innovation Institute, Masdar City, United Arab Emirates

    Vasiliki Vouloutsi

  3. Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA

    Kenneth Moses

  4. Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA

    Roger Quinn

  5. Institute for Bioengineering of Cataloni, Barcelona, Spain

    Anna Mura

  6. University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

    Tony Prescott

  7. Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Paul F. M. J. Verschure

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Kaneko, A., Shimizu, M., Umedachi, T. (2022). Conversion of Elastic Energy Stored in the Legs of a Hexapod Robot into Propulsive Force. In: Hunt, A., et al. Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems. Living Machines 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 13548. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20470-8_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20470-8_9

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-20469-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-20470-8

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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