Affiliations: Department of Intelligent Systems, College of Engineering, Ibaraki University, 4-12-1 Nakanarusawa-cho, Hitachi-shi, Ibaraki 316-8511, Japan | Division of Mechanical and System Engineering Graduate School of Science and Technology, Kyoto Institute of Technology, Matsugasaki-Goshokaido-tyo, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8585, Japan
Abstract: Numerous quadruped walking and running robots have been developed to date. Each robot walks by means of a crawl, walk, trot or pace gait, or runs by means of a bound and/or gallop gait. However, it is very difficult to design a single robot that can both walk and run because of problems related to mechanisms and control. In response to this, we adapted a biological control method for legged locomotion in order to develop a dog-like quadruped robot we have named ‘Tekken’. Tekken has a control system that incorporates central pattern generators, reflexes and responses as well as a mechanism that makes the most of the control system. Tekken, which is equipped with a single mechanism, an unchangeable control method, and modifiable parameters, is capable of achieving walking and trotting on flat terrain, can walk using a free gait on irregular terrain, and is capable of running on flat terrain using a bounding gait. In this paper, we describe the mechanism, the control method and the experimental results of our new development.
