Effects of a Passive Dynamic Walker’s Mechanical Parameters on Foot-Ground Clearance

Unlike human beings, a robot will fall without a sufficient walking foot-ground clearance, which is essential to a success walking. However, to obtain less calculating time and simpler analysis, foot scuffing is ignored in most studies during numerical simulations of passive dynamic walkers which can walk down a gentle slope and are actuated only by their own gravity. So this paper initials a study on the effects of a passive dynamic walker’s mechanical parameters on foot-ground clearance and the results can be used to make a further parameters optimization based on walking stability analysis. A passive dynamic walking model with a hip joint, knee joints, ankle joints and an upper body and a prototype were built and numerical simulations were implemented to analyze the effects of mechanical parameters on foot-ground clearance. Finally, the results were validated in prototype experiments.

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