Roller-Skating of Mammalian Quadrupedal Robot with Passive Wheels Inspired by Human

Human can achieve roller-skating utilizing passive wheels to improve movement speed. Inspired by human roller-skating, a new dynamic roller-skating gait of a typical mammalian quadrupedal robot with passive wheels is proposed to promote mobile efficiency. According to the motion characteristics of human dynamic roller-skating, a simple structure of passive wheels installed on feet is designed for the mammalian quadrupedal robot to achieve this dynamic roller-skating without adding any active joints. Imitating human roller-skating, this dynamic roller-skating gait based on the bilateral symmetry can achieve the linear and turning motion. The Poincare map and the skating inverted pendulum model derived from human roller-skating are used to simplify the controller of the quadrupedal robot without considering real dynamical characteristics. The proposed roller-skating gait is verified in simulations and experiments. The results prove that the roller-skating gait has higher speed and efficiency than the conventional trotting gait.