Towards robust hexapedal running with serial elastic actuation: A 3D simulation study

The legs of a future generation of hexapedal robots should enable highly articulated walking as well as robust running within the same platform. Following a hypothesis from biology [2], robustness and stability of walking mainly result from feedback control while being anchored in selfstabilizing properties of the feedforward driven mechanical structure in case of running. The advantage of this shift from feedback to feedforward control with increasing velocity is, that it allows careful and highly adaptive locomotion at low speeds while the complexity of control is reduced at high speeds. In order to embed a fast locomotion mode within the structure of an articulated leg its individual functional behavior during running needs to be understood, first.