Height Control of a Resonance Hopping Robot

This paper presents a model-based height controller for a one-legged resonance hopping robot. The particular construction of the robot with compensation of energy losses during robot’s flight, and the use of a special dual drive with changeable transmission ratio for allowing an additional decrease of energy expenses, impose some specific requirements on the height controller. Equations of motion in vertical dimension are derived and solved to produce the actuator command that allows the robot to regulate its apex height. The reference control signals are obtained using minimum time and minimum energy as optimization criteria. Some experiments, carried out with a prototype of the resonance hopping robot, are also reported to prove the effectiveness of the proposed controller.