Swing leg control for efficient and repeatable biped walking to emulate biological mechanisms

Abstract

This paper presents a energy efficient swing leg control method based on biological structures in the swing phase. In this method, structural features and the activation pattern of muscles are taken into account. An electromyogram result of human walking indicates that humans use the passive and active mode change and also they have typical activation pattern of muscles, especially hamstrings. Hamstrings are a pair of bi-articular muscles of a lower limb. The straight line relationship connected between hip and ankle joint is derived from structural features of this muscles. This relationship is incorporated into muscle-based landing position control in order to achieve more intuitive and effective control. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed control method is evaluated by comparison with a conventional walking control in a numerical case study.