Optimizing Arm Swing for a Jumping Robot
Fall 2022, 2.740 - Bioinspired Robotics project
Skills Demonstrated
- Team Work
- Robotics & Control
- Simulation Experiments
- Physical Hardware Experiments
- Parameter Sweep
- C++
- Matlab
- mbed Microcontroller
Project Description
Inspired by the way humans perform vertical jumps, in this project we studied the effect of arm swing loading of an elastic ankle joint on the jump height of a jumping robot. Our hypotheses included:
- Arm swing, in the presence of an elastic ankle, can increase maximum jump height
- The timing of the arm swing relative to the leg’s actuation time affects maximum jump height
- There exists an optimal arm swing timing that maximally exploits the elastic ankle for maximum jump height
Our device consisted of a robot with an actuated hip and shoulder joint, and a spring loaded ankle. We tested our hypotheses by measuring the maximum jump height achieved while varying the time delay between the shoulder and hip activation time and with and without arm swing. Experiments were performed with a simplified model in simulation and on physical hardware.
