A Hopping Height Control for Hopping Robot

In recent years, legged robots are progressed and able to walk just like human beings. Hopping has a possibility of moving faster and avoiding larger obstacles than walking. Thus hopping becomes more significant. In this paper, to take account of torque limits of motors, we propose the method of controlling the hopping height by changing the leg length at bottom. Considering an actual environment, the environment will change as the robot moves around. Therefore we describe the way to estimate an actual thrust force. Using the estimated thrust force, command value of leg length in the landing phase is determined. The effectiveness of proposed method is confirmed by simulative and experimental results.