Biped Anthropometric Robotic Leg

The spirit that aims the present work is to investigate upon the walking ability of legged machines pneumatically actuated, with particular reference to biped machines. In particular, a complete medium height human inspired robotic biped has been designed and realized within the laboratories of the robotics department at the University of Catania. The mechanical structure of each leg is made up of four links, corresponding to the pelvis, thighbone, shinbone and foot respectively, jointed by three joints and five degrees of freedom (Dof). In particular the knee joint is moved by one rotational Dof, whereas the ankle and the hip joints, are realized through an universal joint implementing the pitch and the roll Dof for each articulation. As it is possible to see, the whole structure is very compact and reflects the typical anthropometric mass distribution of the human beings. The link dimensions are also human inspired, so the femur is 40 cm long whether the tibia is 35 cm long. Thus, the whole structure is about 110 cm high from the ground, for a total weight of about 12 Kg for each leg.

1. International Journal Of Mechatronics: "Kinematic Model and Control Architecture for a Human Inspired Five DOF Robotic Leg" G.Muscato, G. Spampinato. May 2006 (in press).

2. International Journal of Humanoid Robotics: "A Pneumatic Human inspired robotic Leg: Control Architecture and Kinematical Overview" G.Muscato, G.Spampinato. Volume 3, Number 1, pp.49-66, March 2006.

3. G.Muscato, G.Spampinato, M.Costa, "Virtual Forces Based Locomotion Strategy and Energy Balance Analysis" Proceedings of the 8th International IFAC Symposium on Robot Control SYROCO 2006, Santa Cristina Convent, University of Bologna (Italy) September 6 - 8, 2006.

4. G.Muscato, G.Spampinato, "The Control Architecture of a Pneumatic Robotic Leg". 10th IEEE International Conference on emerging Technologies and Factory Automation ETFA 2005, Catania (Italy) 19-22 September 2005.

5. G.Spampinato, G.Muscato, "Control Architecture and Walking Strategy for a Pneumatic Biped Robot", 8th International Conference on Climbing and Walking Robots Clawar05. LONDON, UK, 13-15 September 2005.

6. G.Muscato, G.Spampinato, "Kinematical behaviour analysis and walking pattern generation upon a five degrees of freedom pneumatic robotic leg". 7 th International Conference on Climbing and Walking Robots, Madrid (Spain), 22-24 September 2004.

7. S.Guccione, G.Muscato, G.Spampinato, "A Human inspired robotic leg: Design, control and mechanical realization", Humanoids 2003, Third IEEE International Conference on Humanoid Robots, TU Munchen and U Karlsruhe (Germany), 1-3 October 2003.

8. S.Guccione, G.Muscato, G.Spampinato, "Modelling and control strategies for bipedal locomotion - experiments with an anthropometric robot leg", 6 th International Conference on Climbing and Walking Robot, Catania (Italy), pp. 517-526, 17-19 September 2003.

9. S.Guccione, G.Muscato, G.Spampinato, Design and Control of an Anthropometric Robotic Leg, 11 th Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation, Rhodes, Greece, June 18-20, 2003.