BirdBot is a bipedal robot designed as a physical test of our hypothesis for the structure and function of the lower leg and multi-articular tendon system in walking and running ground birds. Birdbot’s leg design enables mechanical control of foot-ground interactions and stance-swing transitions. The lower leg multi-tendon network stores elastic energy during stance and releases it at the end of stance to catapult the leg into a flexed position. This flexed position enables rapid swing leg protraction with low resistance. Through intelligence-by-mechanics, BirdBot achieves economical walking and running with only two actuators per leg and simple feedforward control.
See news coverage by CBC’s Quirk’s and Quarks:
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/birdbot-walking-robot-1.6389614
RoboHub feature:
https://robohub.org/birdbot-is-energy-efficient-thanks-to-nature-as-a-model/
UCI news release:
https://news.uci.edu/2022/03/17/uci-study-finds-by-birds-do-it-better/
Paper:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scirobotics.abg4055