We discuss the gait generation and control architecture of a bioinspired climbing robot that presently climbs a variety of vertical surfaces, including carpet, cork and a growing range of stucco-like surfaces in the quasi-static regime. The initial version of the robot utilizes a collection of gaits (cyclic feed-forward motion patterns) to locomote over these surfaces, with each gait tuned for ...

Reconfigurable modular robots have the ability to use different gaits and configurations to perform various tasks. A rolling gait is the fastest currently implemented gait available for traversal over level ground and shows dramatic improvements in efficiency. In this work, we analyze and implement a sensor-based feedback controller to achieve dynamic rolling for a loop robot. The robot senses ...

OBJECTIVE There is increasing evidence that robot-assisted treadmill training might be useful for gait rehabilitation after stroke. The aim of this study was to evaluate the muscle activity of stroke patients during robot-assisted walking and overground walking, and of a group of able-bodied subjects during overground walking. DESIGN Case-control observational study. SUBJECTS Ten stroke sub...

The planar passive compass-gait biped robot on sloped surfaces is the simplest model of legged walkers. It is a two-degrees-of-freedom impulsive mechanical system known to exhibit, in response to an increase in the slope angle of the walking surface, a sequence of period-doubling bifurcations leading to chaos before falling down at some critical slope without any explanation. The fall is found ...

This paper attempts to set the basis for a systematic approach in designing quadruped robots employing a dynamically stable quadruped running in the sagittal plane with a bounding gait, which is a simple model commonly used to analyze the basic qualitative properties of quadruped gaits that use the legs in pair. The outcome of the proposed methodology is the optimal shape of the bounding quadru...

BACKGROUND Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a severe neurological disorder associated not only with ongoing medical complications but also with a significant loss of mobility and participation. The introduction of robotic technologies to recover lower limb function has been greatly employed in the rehabilitative practice. The aim of this preliminary report were to evaluate the efficacy, the feasibil...

Recently, interest in analysis and generation of human and human-like motion has increased in various areas. In robotics, in order to operate a humanoid robot, it is necessary to generate motions that have strictly dynamic consistency. Furthermore, human-like motion for robots will bring advantages such as energy optimization. This paper presents a mechanism to generate two human-like motions, ...

It has been established that a suitably designed unpowered mechanical biped may \walk" down an inclined plane all by itself and eventually acquire a stable periodic gait. The characteristics of this periodic gait (e.g., velocity, time period) depend on the geometry of the biped and the slope of the plane. The energy to maintain the periodic motion comes from the conversion of the biped's gravit...

The impact of the world-wide ageing population has commenced with respect to society in developed countries. Several researchers focused on exploring new methods to improve the quality of life of elderly individuals by allowing them to remain independent and healthy to the maximum possible extent. For example, new walking aids are designed to allow elderly individuals to remain mobile in a safe...

The goal of this thesis was to build a simple toy rock climbing robot, and to explore problems related to grasping, path planning, and robot control. The robot is capable of climbing a wall of pegs either under manual control through a host system and an infrared interface, or on the basis of a set of pre-recorded keyframes. In addition, the robot can climb certain peg configurations using a cy...