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Trunk viscoelasticity and gait stability in quadruped walking

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Abstract

This study is a feasibility study on the viscoelastic properties of the spinal structure and the stability of the gait in a quadruped locomotion robot with a spinal structure. The leg motions in locomotion are periodic, so the gait is parametrized by the phase difference between each leg motion. On the other hand, we modeled the spinal structure as a sequentially connected structure of vertebrae and intervertebral discs. The structure has nonlinear viscoelastic properties. This study analyzed the viscoelastic properties of the spinal structure and the stability of multiple gait conditions using a simple two-inertia system model. We compared the analysis results using the two-inertia system model with the gait conditions observed by hardware experiments. We confirmed that various stable gait conditions depend on the trunk stiffness and locomotion speed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical and Electronic Systems Engineering, Osaka Institute of Technology, 16-1, Ohmiya 5, Asahi-ku, Osaka, 535-8585, Japan

    Yasuhiro Okada & Katsuyoshi Tsujita

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  1. Yasuhiro Okada
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  2. Katsuyoshi Tsujita
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Contributions

The first author, Yasuhiro Okada developed the hardware experimental setup and implemented hardware experiments. The second author, Katsuyoshi Tsujita designed the study, implemented numerical analyses, and wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Katsuyoshi Tsujita.

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Okada, Y., Tsujita, K. Trunk viscoelasticity and gait stability in quadruped walking. Int. J. Dynam. Control 11, 2368–2379 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40435-022-01103-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40435-022-01103-3

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