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Linear Elastic Actuator in Parallel (LEAP) - It's A Hopping Robot
Technically, it's a Linear Elastic Actuator in Parallel (LEAP) robot.
No, just say it. It's a hopping robot!
(Linear Elastic Actuator in Parallel (LEAP) - It's A Hopping Robot)
Current and previous single-legged hopping robots are energetically tethered and lack portability. Here, we present the design and control of an untethered, energetically autonomous single-legged hopping robot. The thrust-producing mechanism of the robot’s leg is an actuated prismatic joint, called a linear elastic actuator in parallel (LEAP). The LEAP mechanism comprises a voice coil actuator in parallel with two compression springs, which gives our robot passive compliance. An actuated gimbal hip joint is realized by two standard servomotors. To control the robot, we adapt Raibert’s hopping controller, and find we can maintain balance roughly in-place for up to approx. 7 seconds (19 hops) while continuously hopping.
In his 1954 novel Lucky Star and the Oceans of Venus, Isaac Asimov writes about the hoppers:
Hoppers are probably the most grotesque forms of transportation ever invented. They consist of a curved body, just large enough to hold a man at the controls. There was a four-bladed rotor above and a single metal leg, rubber-tipped, below. It looked like some giant wading bird gone to sleep with one leg folded under its body. Lucky touched the leap knob and the hopper's leg retracted. Its body sank till it was scarcely seven feet from the ground while the leg moved up into the hollow tube that pierced the hopper just behind the control panel. The leg was released at the moment of maximum retraction with a loud click, and the hopper sprang thirty feet into the air...
Don't leave without seeing more hopping robots! Because I've got hopping robot articles.
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- Hopping Robot Stutter-Jumping Saves Power
- Hopping Robot Sets Record
- MIT 3D One-Leg Hopper Robot Circa 1983
- Prototype Jockey-Ridden Hopping Robot
- Precision Urban Hopper Robot Must 'Stick' Landings
- Precision Urban Hopper Leaps Fence Video
- 'Air Hopper' Robot Grasshopper
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