The Paralyzed Quadruped

Sammanfattning: In this report the significance of the number of degrees of freedom for walking robots is evaluated. To test this, a robot of two functioning legs with 3 degrees of freedom for each leg and two stiff support legs is built. This robot is then capable of walking with one of the two algorithms programed; one algorithm corresponds to one gait. The first gait utilizes 3DoF to walk and turn and the second gait uses only 2DoF while having one of the joints locked. The robot is then tested by measuring the time it takes to walk a set distance for three different scenarios. These scenarios are walking downhill, walking uphill and walking on a flat surface all without turning. The 2DoF gait resulted in being slower and having higher energy consumption but the data was inconclusive and more tests should have been made to further come to a complete conclusion.