Principal Investigator Sangbae Kim
Project Website http://web.mit.edu/sangbae/www/index.html
MIT biomimetic robotics lab aspires to develop a mutidisciplinary foundation of hyperdynamic robotics. Hyperdynamic robotics involves dynamic modeling, hierarchical control architecture, monolithic multi-material manufacturing, novel actuation technologies, and morphological design tool that enable the development of high performance dynamic robotic platforms.
Agile mobility of the robotic platform requires high acceleration capability with dynamic stability, and jumping over large obstacles and landing with the flexible body articulation involves multi-body dynamics of the dynamic control with tunable compliances made by polymeric multi-material manufacturing process. Extensive study on biological runners such as dogs and cheetahs intertwines with the morphologic design of the galloping robot capable of the fast traverse on rough and unstructured terrains.
Based on the mechanical properties of actuators, the actuator allocation and actuation scheme can be optimized in order to achieve maximum performance. Key thrust include the development and implementation of the smart impedance control unit to leverage the passive dynamics, in pursuit of optimized force coordination of multi-degree of freedom legs and effective energy storage.