We propose a novel mechanism that propagates vibration through soft twisted beams, taking advantage of dynamically-coupled anisotropic stiffness to simplify the actuation of walking robots. Using dynamic simulation and experimental approaches, we show that the coupled stiffness of twisted beams with terrain contact can be controlled to generate a variety of complex trajectories by changing the frequency of the input signal. This work reveals how ground contact influences the system's dynamic behavior, supporting the design of walking robots inspired by this phenomenon. We also show that the proposed twisted beam produces a tunable walking gait from a single vibrational input.
@article{arxiv.2211.00715,
title = {Tunable Dynamic Walking via Soft Twisted Beam Vibration},
author = {Yuhao Jiang and Fuchen Chen and Daniel M. Aukes},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2211.00715},
year = {2023}
}
Comments
8 pages, 5 figure, this paper has been submitted to IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, copyright may be transferred without notice, after which this version may no longer be accessible, the supplemental video is available at: https://youtu.be/HpvOvaIC1Z4