A Low-Inertia and High-Stiffness Cable-Driven Biped Robot: Design, Modeling, and Control

Tang, Jun; Mou, Haiming; Hou, Yunfeng; Zhu, Yudi; Liu, Jian; Zhang, Jianwei

doi:10.3390/math12040559

Open AccessArticle

A Low-Inertia and High-Stiffness Cable-Driven Biped Robot: Design, Modeling, and Control

by

Jun Tang

^1,2,

Haiming Mou

^1,2

,

Yunfeng Hou

^2,*

,

Yudi Zhu

²,

Jian Liu

²

and

Jianwei Zhang

³

¹

School of Optical-Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China

²

Institute of Machine Intelligence, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China

³

Department of Informatics, University of Hamburg, 20146 Hamburg, Germany

^*

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Mathematics 2024, 12(4), 559; https://doi.org/10.3390/math12040559

Submission received: 16 January 2024 / Revised: 4 February 2024 / Accepted: 8 February 2024 / Published: 13 February 2024

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Dynamics and Control of Complex Systems and Robots)

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Abstract

In this paper, a biped robot system for dynamic walking is presented. It has two 2-degree-of-freedom (DOF) lightweight legs and a 6-DOF hip. All the joint pulleys of the legs are driven by motors that are placed at the hip using steel cables. Since all the heavy motors are mounted at the hip, the biped robot has remarkably low-mass legs beyond the hip, which guarantees low inertia during walking at high speeds. Utilizing cable-amplification mechanisms, high stiffness and strength are achieved, resulting in better control performance compared to conventional direct-driven methods. Techniques are developed to estimate joint-angle errors caused by the elastic deformation of the cables. To achieve smooth control, we introduce the concept of a virtual leg, which is an imaginary leg connecting the hip joint and the ankle joint. A robust control approach based on the “virtual leg” is presented, which considers the variances of the virtual leg length during walking. Experiments are conducted to validate the effectiveness of the mechanical design and the proposed control approach.

Keywords: biped robot; cable driven; low inertia; high stiffness; joint-angle error; virtual leg

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MDPI and ACS Style

Tang, J.; Mou, H.; Hou, Y.; Zhu, Y.; Liu, J.; Zhang, J. A Low-Inertia and High-Stiffness Cable-Driven Biped Robot: Design, Modeling, and Control. Mathematics 2024, 12, 559. https://doi.org/10.3390/math12040559

AMA Style

Tang J, Mou H, Hou Y, Zhu Y, Liu J, Zhang J. A Low-Inertia and High-Stiffness Cable-Driven Biped Robot: Design, Modeling, and Control. Mathematics. 2024; 12(4):559. https://doi.org/10.3390/math12040559

Chicago/Turabian Style

Tang, Jun, Haiming Mou, Yunfeng Hou, Yudi Zhu, Jian Liu, and Jianwei Zhang. 2024. "A Low-Inertia and High-Stiffness Cable-Driven Biped Robot: Design, Modeling, and Control" Mathematics 12, no. 4: 559. https://doi.org/10.3390/math12040559

APA Style

Tang, J., Mou, H., Hou, Y., Zhu, Y., Liu, J., & Zhang, J. (2024). A Low-Inertia and High-Stiffness Cable-Driven Biped Robot: Design, Modeling, and Control. Mathematics, 12(4), 559. https://doi.org/10.3390/math12040559

Note that from the first issue of 2016, this journal uses article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.

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A Low-Inertia and High-Stiffness Cable-Driven Biped Robot: Design, Modeling, and Control

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