BENEFITS AND DRAWBACKS OF MRF KNEE DAMPING IN LEGGED ROBOTS

In order to create efficient legged robots it is needed to care about energy consumption. During motion, energy is used in two different ways: positive energy to generate movement, and negative energy to brake movement. The use of passive components to dissipate the energy by friction could be a possible solution to avoid braking with active elements. This paper deals with the problem of determining experimentally the benefits of damping the knee by absorbing negative energy in MRF dampers, against actively braking using the actuators.