Lateral Force Scaling During Legged Locomotion

Sam Elkins

Mentor: Dr. Noah Cowan

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University

Designing robots is extremely difficult. There are many tradeoffs between maneuverability and stability that have to be made. Oftentimes engineers will build much more stable vehicles or robots than required. Cars, planes, and trains are far faster and stable than any animal. Maneuverability is the ability to change motion and stability is the ability to resist change in motion. Many animals lessen this tradeoff by producing lateral forces. Lateral forces are non propulsive but help the animal maintain stability and maneuverability at the cost of energy. Comparing animals of large and small body masses and the lateral forces they produce could help understand how animals maintain maneuverability and stability. Animals are compared by graphing the lateral forces on the y axis and the body mass on the x axis over 4 orders of magnitude. When graphed on a logarithmic scale it is believed that it will scale linearly.