Effects of turning gait parameters on energy consumption and stability of a six-legged walking robot

Abstract

Minimization of energy consumption plays a key role in the locomotion of a multi-legged robot used for various purposes. Turning gaits are the most general and important factors for omni-directional walking of a six-legged robot. This paper presents an analysis on energy consumption of a six-legged robot during its turning motion over a flat terrain. An energy consumption model is developed for statically stable wave gaits in order to minimize dissipating energy for optimal feet forces distributions. The effects of gait parameters, namely angular velocity, angular stroke and duty factors are studied on energy consumption, as the six-legged robot walks along a circular path of constant radius with wave gait. The variations of average power consumption and energy consumption per unit weight per unit traveled length with the angular velocity and angular stroke are compared for the turning gaits of a robot with four different duty factors. Computer simulations show that wave gait with a low duty factor is more energy-efficient compared to that with a high duty factor at the highest possible angular velocity. A stability analysis based on normalized energy stability margin is performed for turning motion of the robot with four duty factors for different angular strokes.