Development of a biped walking robot actuated by a closed-chain mechanism

Abstract

We developed a new type of a human-sized BWR (biped walking robot) driven by the closed-chain type of a joint actuator. Each leg of the BWR is composed of three pitch joints and one roll joint. In all, a 12 degree-of-freedom robot, including four arm joints, was developed. The BWR was designed to walk autonomously; it is actuated by small 90W DC motors/drivers and is has DC batteries and controllers. A new type of the joint actuator for the BWR is composed of the four-bar-link mechanism driven by a ball screw which has high strength and high gear ratio despite its light weight.In this paper, analyses on the four-bar-link mechanism applied to the joint actuator and on the structure of the BWR are presented. Through walking experiments of the BWR, the superior trajectory-tracking ability of the proposed joint actuator is validated.