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Design and simulation analysis of a bionic ostrich robot

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Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

To look for the reason why the biped animal in nature can run with such high speed and to design a bionic biped prototype which can behave the high speed running and jumping ability, this paper takes the fastest bipedal animal in nature: ostrich as the research subject. Firstly, the body structure and motion characteristics of ostrich are investigated. Secondly, a simple mechanical structure of bionic ostrich robot is designed based on the above biological investigated results. The robot is under-actuated with one actuator each leg, with a spring on the tarsometatarsus and a torsion spring on the metatarsophalangeal joint at the foot end. And then the mechanical design of leg structure is optimized. Finally, the high-speed running and jumping running gait is planned, and comparative simulations are implemented with different design requirements among pure rigid and rigid-flexible coupling scheme, which are rigid, only with spring, only with torsion spring, and with spring and torsion spring both, in detail. Simulation results show that the rigid-flexible coupling design scheme and whole body motion coordination can achieve better high speed performance. It provides an insight for the design and control of legged robots.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (62103036) and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2022JBMC025).

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Author notes

  1. Ningze Wei, Jin Li and Huafeng Lu these authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Robotics Research Center, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing, 100044, People’s Republic of China

    Guangrong Chen, Ningze Wei & Huafeng Lu

  2. Machinery Department of Patent Office, China National Intellectual Property Administration, Beijing, 100083, People’s Republic of China

    Jin Li

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  1. Guangrong Chen
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  2. Ningze Wei
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  3. Jin Li
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  4. Huafeng Lu
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Correspondence to Guangrong Chen.

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Chen, G., Wei, N., Li, J. et al. Design and simulation analysis of a bionic ostrich robot. Biomech Model Mechanobiol 21, 1781–1801 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10237-022-01619-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10237-022-01619-9

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