Stable running of a planar underactuated biped robot

This paper investigates the stable-running problem of a planar underactuated biped robot, which has two springy telescopic legs and one actuated joint in the hip. After modeling the robot as a hybrid system with multiple continuous state spaces, a natural passive limit cycle, which preserves the system energy at touchdown, is found using the method of Poincare shooting. It is then checked that the passive limit cycle is not stable. To stabilize the passive limit cycle, an event-based feedback control law is proposed, and also to enlarge the basin of attraction, an additive passivity-based control term is introduced only in the stance phase. The validity of our control strategies is illustrated by a series of numerical simulations.