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Design and control of a clutch for a minimally-actuated biped based on the passive-dynamic simple walker

Thesis (S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 41). / Passive-dynamic walking robots are remarkable mechanical devices capable of maintaining dynamically stable walking gaits with no actuation or control. These systems, however, depend on ideal environmental conditions for stability. Robustness and control capabilities are increased with actuation, but so is the power consumption. Such actuated robots are designed to minimize the actuation requirement by exploiting the system natural dynamics system, but still need actuation to compensate for energy dissipated by friction and collision events, as well as for more control capabilities. A simple clutch mechanism is developed for such systems to allow intermittent control of otherwise passive joints, allowing controllers to exploit the passive or actuated control when desired. The clutch is tested on a hip actuated simple 3D walker to evaluate the performance capabilities of clutched control. Preliminary tests of several control strategies suggest the clutched actuation may provide good performance at a higher efficiency compared to fully actuated systems. This paper describes the development of the clutch device and the hip-actuated biped on with which the clutch is tested, and evaluates the performance of intermittent clutch-control for several control strategies. / by Arlis Reynolds. / S.B.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:MIT/oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/36710
Date January 2006
CreatorsReynolds, Arlis (Arlis A.)
ContributorsRussell L Tedrake., Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering., Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.
PublisherMassachusetts Institute of Technology
Source SetsM.I.T. Theses and Dissertation
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis
Format41 leaves, application/pdf
RightsM.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission., http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

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