Toward Highly Dynamic Locomotion : Actuation, structure and control of the MIT cheetah robot

Robot designers are increasingly searching for ideas from biology. The talk will introduce such bio-inspired robots that embody the hypothesized principles from the insights obtained by animal studies. Through these examples, the intricate processes of design principle extraction will be discussed. Current research in the MIT biomimetics lab is centered on the development of a cheetah-inspired running robot. Three major associated research thrusts are optimum actuator design, biotensegrity structure design, and the impulse-based control architecture for stable galloping control. Each research component is guided by biomechanics of runners such as dogs and cheetahs capable of the fast traverse on rough and unstructured terrains.

Speaker: Sangbae Kim, Professor, Mechanical Engineering, MIT

HP Auditorium