Project Description
aka energy efficient legged locomotion
The goal of this project was to create a new generation of legged robots that can traverse over rugged terrain in an energy-efficient manner. The team designed and tested a new energy efficient joint mechanism suitable for the robot’s knee. In particular, the joint’s stiffness can be changed on the fly so that it can cope with ground of varying hardness.
We also demonstrated that the parallel configuration of the joint is superior to the series configuration for energy efficient locomotion. In 2013, our accomplishments were published at an international conference in Germany. Here you can see a video of Skippy in action.
This project commenced with a $12,000 grant from The University of Queensland.
The controllable torque and stiffness joint.
Publications
Ball, P. Ross, J. Wall, R. Chow. (2013) A novel energy efficient controllable stiffness joint, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Karlsruhe, Germany.
