Modelling of Continuous Contact-Based Skating Technique

Quick locomotion has always been a challenge for humanoid robots. Most of the work has been done to improve the efficiency of the walking gaits. Recently, additional equipment like skates are increasingly being used to speed up location, but they also make the system highly unstable. This paper describes the development of a statically stable skating gait to facilitate movement across plain surfaces, such as roads and hard ice. The new gait utilises the non-holonomic nature of a wheel (or blade of an ice skate). The proposed motion of the skates on the ground plane enables it to propel the robot forward without lifting its leg. Kinematic and dynamic equations of an equivalent model are formulated. Further, the paper discusses the relationship between different input signals and their corresponding output gaits. Multibody dynamics software is then used to simulate and verify the results for various scenarios. The design of an equivalent model with three degrees of freedom is then analysed and discussed for practical testing. Finally, the algorithm was tested on a fabricated robot.