Energy efficient walking with central pattern generators: From passive dynamic walking to biologically inspired control

Like human walking, passive dynamic walking—i.e. walking down a slope with no actuation except gravity—is energy efficient by exploiting the natural dynamics. In the animal world, neural oscillators termed central pattern generators (CPGs) provide the basic rhythm for muscular activity in locomotion. We present a CPG model, which automatically...

Walking on two legs is difficult

Swing-Leg Retraction for Limit Cycle Walkers Improves Disturbance Rejection

Limit cycle walkers are bipeds that exhibit a stable cyclic gaitwithout requiring local controllability at all times during gait. A well-known example of limit cycle walking is McGeer’s “passive dynamic walking,” but the concept expands to actuated bipeds as involved in this study. One of the stabilizing effects in limit cycle walkers is the...