The video shows a hopping robot that uses a bungee cord in the knee for energy-efficient continuous hopping.
We investigate how the passive and active compliance of the leg can help to absorb the shock of landing impact and protect the harmonic drives which are the most fragile part of a robot.
Publication:
http://kormushev.com/papers/Dallali_Humanoids-2014.pdf
Citation:
Houman Dallali, Petar Kormushev, Nikolaos Tsagarakis, Darwin G. Caldwell, “Can Active Impedance Protect Robots from Landing Impact?”, In Proc. IEEE Intl Conf. on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids 2014), Madrid, Spain, 2014.