Bipedal walking with oblique mid-foot joint in foot

Abstract

This paper proposes a new design of a robotic foot with an oblique mid-foot joint for stable bipedal walking. While a lot of humanoid robots are developed so far, their walking is not as adaptive as that of humans. For realizing such adaptive walking, it is supposed that musculoskeletal structure plays a great roll. Especially, the human's foot is so much different from the robot foot, and is supposed to contributing to walking adaptability. In this report, we discuss on an oblique axis of mid-foot joint, one of such complexities of the human foot. This joint is the most flexible joint in the human foot and is supposed to be contributing to walking stability. We design a robotic foot with the mid-foot joint and put it on a muscular-skeletal humanoid robot. Experimental results of the robot demonstrate that the mid-foot joint stabilize its bipedal walking.