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First Leg Complete

A project log for Blackbird Bipedal Robot

A low-cost, high-performance bipedal walking robot

gabrael-levineGabrael Levine 09/07/2018 at 00:260 Comments

I finished assembling the first leg for the prototype Blackbird robot. It's made from 2 OpenTorque actuators, some carbon fiber tubes, and a few printed parts. (The parts were printed out of PLA but will be redone in NylonX for the final version.) 

Since this is a simplified prototype, there's no ankle joint. Instead it has a point-contact foot. This makes it a better approximation of the spring-loaded inverted pendulum (SLIP) model, which makes developing the controls easier, but it'll need an ankle joint to be able to stand still. Until the ankle joint is added, I can use dynamic standing (see the video below).

Next up: building a test rig from V-slot extrusions and seeing how high the leg can jump. 

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