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Three Uses for Springs in Legged Locomotion
Abstract
Running animals and robots can save energy and reduce unwanted heat production by bouncing along on springs, using the principle of the pogo stick. (The principal springs in animals are tendons.) They can make further energy savings by using return springs to halt the legs at the end of each foward or backward swing and start them swinging the other way. The forces at impact of feet with the ground can be moderated by compliant foot pads, which can improve road holding by preventing "chatter" (vibrations in which the foot repeatedly leaves and returns to the ground before settling). Animals use springs in all three ways but there seems to be a need for more use of springs in legged robots, especially in robots designed to run fast.
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Citations
Cited by
Donelan, J. M., Kram, R., & Kuo, A. D. (2002) · Journal of Experimental Biology · doi:10.1242/jeb.205.23.3717 · Cited by 670
Many-legged maneuverability: dynamics of turning in hexapods
Jindrich, D. L., & Full, R. J. (1999) · Journal of Experimental Biology · doi:10.1242/jeb.202.12.1603 · Cited by 229
Metadata
- Authors
- Alexander, R. M.
- Venue
- The International Journal of Robotics Research
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 1990-04
- Volume
- 9
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 53-61
- ISSN
- 0278-3649 (ISSN-L)
- 1741-3176
- OpenAlex
- W2081115468
- Cited by
- 407
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 1.86
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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- Alexander, R. M. (1990). Three Uses for Springs in Legged Locomotion. The International Journal of Robotics Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/027836499000900205
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
