On the Technological Instantiation of a Biomimetic Leg Concept for Agile Quadrupedal Locomotion

The legged locomotion system of biological quadrupeds has proven to be the most efficient in natural, complex terrain. Particularly, horses' legs have been evolved to provide speed, endurance, and strength superior to any other animal of equal size. Quadruped robots, emulating their biological counterparts, could become the best choice for field missions in complex or natural environments; however, they should be provided with optimum performance against mobility, payload, and endurance. The design of the leg mechanism is of paramount importance to achieve the targeted performance, and in order to design a leg mechanism able to provide the robot with such agile capabilities nature is the best source for inspiration. In this work, key principles underlying horse legs' power capabilities have been extracted and translated to a biomimetic leg concept. Afterwards, a real prototype has been designed following the biomimetic concept proposed. A key element in the biomimetic concept is the multifunctionality of the natural musculotendinous system, which has been mimicked by combining series elastic actuation and passive elements. This work provides an assessment of the benefits that bio-inspired solutions can provide versus the purely engineering approaches. The experimental evaluation of the bio-inspired prototype shows an improvement on the performance compared to a leg design based on purely engineering principles.