Design of a robot leg with elastic energy storage, comparison to biology, and preliminary experimental results

Abstract

This paper presents a novel robot leg design. The leg is powered by a DC motor which drives elastic tendons to turn a foot. The tendons store elastic energy just as in nature. Preliminary experimental results show the leg has a well-defined resonance which can be exploited to produce hopping. We also offer a comparison of our leg with the cat hindlimb. Eventually, the leg will be part of a quadrupedal robot.