DESIGN AND SCALING OF VERSATILE QUADRUPED ROBOTS

The rough terrain mobility of legged robots is expected to exceed the performance of their wheeled or tracked counterparts. To fully take advantage of the legs, such robots need to be versatile by achieving highly dynamic motions at the same time as careful navigation over rough terrain. Highly dynamic robots need to be designed to be fast and strong enough to run and jump. A dynamic robot needs to be light and powerful at the same time. Two requirements that are conflicting and therefore have to be traded off. In this work we present a tool that helps quadruped robot designer to better select and size joint actuators for various robot sizes. We use the squat jump as characteristic motion of a highly dynamic robot and estimate required joint torque and velocity in relation to maximum jump height, body mass and leg segment length.