Walking patterns and actuator specifications for a biped robot

Since most conventional robots cannot easily be adapted to environments designed for humans, a human-size biped robot is expected to be able to play an important role in assisting human activities. The selection of suitable joint actuators is an important point when developing a human-size biped robot. In order to select suitable actuators and effectively utilize the selected actuators, it is necessary to clarify the relationship between walking patterns and the specifications of each joint actuator, and this is the issue tackled in this paper. First, a method of generating a high stability, smooth walking pattern is presented, and it is shown how various walking patterns can be produced by setting a series of defined walking parameters. Then, the dynamics of the robot, including the reaction force between the feet and the ground, are formulated. Finally, by simulation studies, the correlation found between actuator specifications and walking patterns is described, and the effectiveness of the proposed method is suggested.