Relationship between the shape of the elliptical knee joint and jumping height in a leg-type robot driven by pneumatic artificial muscle

Abstract The McKibben pneumatic actuator (MPA) is a soft used for performing various practical functions in robots. Particularly, many dynamic robots have been realized using MPAs. However, there trade-off between torque generated by MPA and the range of motion joint. In this study, we focus on jumping leg-type robot use an elliptical pulley whose moment arm changes depending robot’s posture. To confirm effectiveness pulley, relationship knee joint (patella) shape height was analyzed simulation, patella maximizing determined. It shown that elongated more effective than circular one. Furthermore, analytically determined confirmed experiments actual robot.