Recent interest in using passive dynamic walkers (PDWs) for gait rehabilitation studies has presented a need for a robust, easily built mechanism. Unfortunately, these passive robots are hypersensitive to many variables outside of the usual design considerations that are studied when constructing them. By accentuating previous failures instead of suppressing them, this thesis presents a number of problematic situations commonly experienced when testing and tuning a PDW. Further, through a complete design of a 4-legged PDW with knees, simple design axioms brought about by myself and others are put into a practical context and applied directly to design. This thesis aspires to present a systematic design process, and highlight how a computational model can be used with both hand calculations and CAD packages. Using the insight from those researchers before me, I strive to further their designs and present relevant information in a design compendium that makes it more useful to those who have an application for the device. This thesis resulted in two novel designs for a PDW. First, a changing radius foot was developed to increase knee flexion upon toe off. The decrease in radius increases joint angular velocity resulting in ramp up. Further investigation of these feet could result in more stable and efficient walking patterns. The other design brought to attention is the planar crossbar mechanism for coupling the inner and outer legs. The crossbar provides a rigid coupling without changing the rotational inertia between the coupled pair about the hip axis.

The diploma paper deal with control problems of a four legged walking robot. They endeavour to establish and partly implement the walking and control algorithms. They are divided into six parts. Individual chassis types and their advantages and drawbacks are analysed in introduction. Next part describes mechanical design of the robot and also all realised electronics facilities. The third part describes in detail sensors that are used by the robot. Following part deals with description of robot's walking. It explains individual walking phases and analyses both static and dynamic stability. Next part contains description of the robot's software facility. The software facility of the control micro-controller and the algorithm that generates walking are explained in this part. It also describes software facility of control application in computer. Exploration of the possibilities for wireless control is carried out in the last part.

The object of this thesis is an analysis of the possibilities of a wireless communication and a sensor‘s equipment for a four legged walking robot. The thesis is divided into three parts. In the first part there is a particular sale’s exploration in the section of the wireless communication modules. It refers to the differences among technologies in the methods of signal transmission, the technical parameters but also in the communication protocols. The next part of this thesis is focused on sensor’s equipment with the accent on the possibility of use for a four legged walking robot. It contains a short listing of sensors, which are available in the Czech Republic with division based on the type of sensing magnitude. These two parts make a base for the last part where I have chosen suitable communication modules along with sensors and realization wireless data transfer including control and visualization. The result of this thesis is the complete communication block from the user to the robot.

The diploma thesis deals with the construction of a walking mobile robot, which is intended for passing through a rugged or forest terrain, whose task is to collect the sample. The first part is devoted to the review of walking robots. Follow-up an analysis of two-legged and four-leg walking robot technologies and a brief overview of drives. The second part is devoted to problem analysis and design variant. The work contains 4 design variants in the form of schemes. Using the multi-criteria analysis, the variants were evaluated and the optimal variant was chosen taking into account the representative parameters. The third part is devoted to the construction of the chosen variant, it is divided into body and leg construction. The overall design is processed in the form of a virtual 3D model. In the leg construction, the design itself, but also the calculations of drives, shafts, gears and belt transmissions are solved. The end of the thesis is devoted to drawing documentation based on 3D model and economic evaluation. Follow-up and discussion with possible continuation and use in practice.