Bipedal running with one actuator per leg

RHex is a cockroach-inspired hexapod robot capable of walking, running, and climbing. This thesis presents the development of a novel, three dimensional, bipedal running gait for RHex using only two actuated degrees of freedom (DOF), one per compliant leg. To the author's knowledge, there are no previous, two DOF bipeds capable of running. In this thesis it is experimentally demonstrated that only body pitch and leg angle sensing are required. The controller includes three levels of proportional derivative controls for balancing, forward speed and leg tracking, as well a leg trajectory generator and a means of forward speed estimation. With the addition of yaw angle feedback, high repeatability was obtained. Details of a platform upgrade are also presented. Finally, a simulation model of the robot was developed that, in conjunction with a genetic algorithm optimization used to tune the controller and gait parameters, produced a stable gait similar to those observed in experiment