International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems

A Passive Dynamic Walking Model

Based on Knee-Bend Behaviour:
Stability and Adaptability for
Walking Down Steep Slopes

Regular Paper



Kang An
1
and Qijun Chen
1,*


1 Tongji University, China
* Corresponding author E-mail: qjchen@tongji.edu.cn

Received 30 Jul 2012; Accepted 03 Jul 2013

DOI: 10.5772/56807

2013 An and Chen; licensee InTech. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.


Abstract This paper presents a passive dynamic walking
model based on knee-bend behaviour, which is inspired
by the way human beings walk. The length and mass
parameters of human beings are used in the walking
model. The knee-bend mechanism of the stance leg is
designed in the phase between knee-strike and heel-
strike. q* which is the angular difference of the stance leg
between the two events, knee-strike and knee-bend, is
adjusted in order to find a stable walking motion. The
results show that the stable periodic walking motion on a
slope of r <0.4 can be found by adjusting q*. Furthermore,
with a particular q* in the range of 0.12<q*<0.18, the
walker can walk down more steps before falling down on
an arbitrary slope. The walking motion is more stable and
adaptable than the conventional walking motion,
especially for steep slopes.

Keywords Knee-Bend Behaviour, Passive Dynamics,
Biped Locomotion, Robotics

1. Introduction

In the past decades, passive dynamic walking theory has
made huge contributions to walking robots research.
Since McGeer (1990) introduced his idea of passive
dynamic walking, that a biped machine with no actuator
and no control could walk stably on a shallow slope
[1, 2]
,
many institutes have succeeded in building successful
walking robots developed from the passive dynamic
walking theory. Grizzle (2008) constructed a novel biped
robot, MABEL
[3]
, which had springs that acted somewhat
liked tendons in the human body for energy storage.
Wisse (2009) designed the biped robot Leo
[4]
, a fully
autonomous platform that was especially suited for
machine learning experiments. Cornell Ranger
[5]
, the
walking robot which was designed by Ruina (May, 2011),
walked for 65.2 km non-stop on a single battery charge
without any interference.


1 Kang An and Qijun Chen: A Passive Dynamic Walking Model Based on Knee-Bend Behaviour:
Stability and Adaptability for Walking Down Steep Slopes
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ARTICLE
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Int. j. adv. robot. syst., 2013, Vol. 10, 365:2013
Compared with conventional powered walking robots
[6, 7]
,
constant control and actuation are not necessary for
passive dynamic walking robots to achieve a stable
walking motion
[8-10]
. Therefore, passive dynamic walking
has two important advantages: inherent stability and
high energy efficiency
[11]
. On the one hand, passive
dynamic walkers can easily resist small disturbances with
certain mechanical parameters
[12]
. No control is needed
during walking. On the other hand, the energy efficiency
of passive dynamic walkers is much higher than that of
conventional walking robots
[13-15]
. For example, the cost
of transport (COT) of Cornell Ranger is 0.28 which is
similar to that of a human
[5]
.

However, up until now, passive dynamic walkers have
only been able to walk stably on slopes with a small slope
angle
[16-18]
. It is hard for them to walk on a steep slope. This
is mainly because the walking capacity of passive dynamic
walkers relies on the mechanical structures and the
walking mechanism. By analysing human beings walking
down slopes, we found that there is a stance knee-bend
process which could improve the stability of the walking.
However, none of the existing passive dynamic walkers
applied this knee mechanism to walking down slopes. To
improve the ability of walking on slopes, most researchers
would like to work on advanced control methods, rather
than the walking mechanism. However, it would be more
advantageous, for example, to design more efficient
controllers with less stringent torque requirements
[19]
, if
this knee-bend mechanism could be studied using a
completely passive dynamic method. The walking model
could walk more stably on steeper slopes and adapt to
more complex walking environments.

The goal of this paper is to investigate the passive
dynamic walking motion based on knee-bend behaviour
on slopes. We find the periodic walking motion by
adjusting the bending time of the stance leg. In addition,
we investigate the stability and adaptability of the
walking motion, and make some comparisons with
conventional walking motion.
2. Walking motion based on knee-bend behaviour
2.1 The walking motion
A five mass points and four sticks model is used to study
this passive dynamic walking motion. Figure 1 shows a
typical step in the walking motion. The walking step
begins at the instant that the two legs are both on the
slope, just after the stance foot hits the slope at the heel-
strike and the swing foot is away from the ground (Figure
1. a). The swing thigh and shank continue their free
swinging (Figure 1. b) until the swing knee-strike occurs
(Figure 1. c). Then, the straight swing leg keeps swinging
and the stance knee will be bent passively sometime after
the swing knee-strike (Figure 1. e). The step ends with a
heel-strike when the swing foot makes contact with the
slope (Figure 1. f). A new step will begin after the heel-
strike. The whole walking step is a periodic process
whereby the initial condition of the model at the
beginning of a new step is the same as that of the last
step. Inherent in this are the assumptions that the
collisions are instantaneous and perfectly plastic, and that
the double support occurs instantaneously. We also
assume that there is sufficient friction between the feet
and the ground surface to prevent slippage during the
whole walking process.

However, this mechanism of knee-bend has not been
studied in conventional passive dynamic walking yet.
The main difference between the new walking model
presented in this paper and the conventional walking
model is that the stance knee will be bent sometime
between the knee-strike and the heel-strike in the new
walking model, but the stance leg stays straight all the
time between the knee-strike and the heel-strike in the
conventional walking model. The knee-bend process
could lead to a lighter heel-strike, which is probably the
reason why the new model could perform a more stable
walking motion on slopes.




Figure 1. A typical step of the passive dynamic walking motion based on knee-bend behaviour.
2 Int. j. adv. robot. syst., 2013, Vol. 10, 365:2013 www.intechopen.com
2.2 Analysis of the model
This five mass points and four sticks model is similar to a
humans lower body which contains thighs and shanks
(Figure 2. a). The five mass points are at the hip, on the
thigh and the shank respectively, which characterize the
mass distribution of the model. r is the slope angle. q0, q1,
q2, q3 are the angles of the stance shank, stance thigh,
swing thigh, and swing shank with respect to the normal
line to the slope respectively. The whole configuration of
the walking model can be described by the generalized
coordinates
0 1 2 3
( , , , )
T
q q q q q = which characterize the four
degrees of freedom of the model. The walking models
condition qs can be described as follows:
q
s
= (q
0
, q
0
, q
1
, q
1
, q
2
, q
2
, q
3
, q
3
)
T
. Table 1 shows the definitions of
the length and mass parameters of the model.

The whole walking motion is analysed by the methods
described in the Appendix, which contains the following
aspects: A.1) Equations of motion, A.2) Knee-strike, A.3)
Heel-strike, A.4) Constrained joint torques, A.5) Periodic
walking motion.




Figure 2. Walking model based on knee-bend behaviour.
(a) Model parameters; (b) Coordinates of the five mass points.
During the walking process of the knee-bend model,
the stance leg is designed to be bent sometime between
the knee-strike and the heel-strike (Figure 3). After the
knee-strike, the straight stance leg and swing leg rotate
in a forward direction. Then, the constrained torque in
the stance knee is released at the instant of the knee-
bend. The stance leg starts being bent. After the knee-
bend, the model walks with the bent stance leg until
the heel-strike. In our calculation we set the parameter
q* to adjust the starting time of the knee-bend. When
the stance leg rotates forward around the angle of q*
after the instant of the knee-strike, the knee-bend
process will start. If we define the angle of the stance
leg at the knee-strike as q
k
, we expect the angle of the
stance leg for the starting knee-bend to be q
b
. The
following relation can be obtained, where qh is the
angle of the stance leg which is still straight at the
heel-strike.

= * * [0, ]
b k h k
q q q q q q + ,
(1)

The stance leg will be bent after the instant of the knee-
bend. By choosing a particular q*, we can adjust the
starting time of the knee-bend from the knee-strike to the
heel-strike. If q*=0, then the knee-bend and the knee-strike
happen at the same time; if q*= qh qk, then there is no
knee-bend in the walking process, which is a feature of
the conventional walking motion.

The solution of periodic walking motion based on knee-
bend behaviour includes the initial condition of the
walking motion and the angle parameter q*. In the real
walker design, the angle of the stance leg and the event of
the knee-strike could be detected by sensors, such as
encoders. The walker starts with the initial condition
calculated in our simulation. The mechanical method is
used to keep the stance leg straight at the start of the step
[20]
. When the knee-strike is detected by the sensors, the
angle of the stance leg at the knee-strike q
k
is recorded.
Then, after the stance leg rotates forward around the
expected angle of q* (from the calculation), the knee-bend
event is triggered. The stance knee is unlocked and the
stance leg starts being bent. The step ends until the heel-
strike is detected.




Figure 3. The knee-bend process after knee-strike.
3 Kang An and Qijun Chen: A Passive Dynamic Walking Model Based on Knee-Bend Behaviour:
Stability and Adaptability for Walking Down Steep Slopes
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Leg length: l Hip mass: m
h

Thigh length: l
t
Thigh mass: m
t

Shank length: l
s
Shank mass: m
s

Distance between thigh centroid and hip: l
th

Distance between thigh centroid and knee: l
tk

Distance between shank centroid and knee: l
sk

Distance between shank centroid and foot: l
sf


Table 1. Definitions of length and mass parameters of the model.

3. Periodic walking motion

The periodic walking motion based on knee-bend
behaviour on slopes can be found using the model
parameters from Table 2. The model parameters are
chosen so that they correspond to the parameters of the
human body
[21]
. On the one hand, using the parameters
of the human body could help us make a comparison
with the way human beings walk. On the other hand, it
could help in the design of future human-like prototypes.

m
h
56 kg l 1 m
m
t
10 kg l
t
0.5 m
m
s
5 kg l
s
0.5 m
l
th
0.2 m l
tk
0.3 m
l
sk
0.28 m l
sf
0.22 m

Table 2. Parameters of the walking model.

The typical stable periodic walking motion for the slope
angle r =0.35 (rad) was found when the setting was q* =
0.063 (rad) in our calculation (Figure 4 and Figure 5).
Figure 4 shows the stick figure of this periodic walking
motion. The step starts immediately after the heel-strike
with a straight stance leg and a bended swing leg when
both feet are on the slope. The initial condition of the step
is shown in Table 3. When the swing knee-strike happens,
the swing leg becomes straight. The three-links walking
phase turns into the two-links walking phase with
straight legs. Then, after the knee-bend, the two links
phase turns into a new three-links walking phase with a
straight swing leg and a bended stance leg. The step ends
at the new heel-strike, where the models condition will
be converted into the identical initial condition for the
next step (Table 3). Therefore, the step can be divided into
three sections by the two events knee-strike and knee-
bend. The swing leg is bent before the knee-strike and is
straight after that; the stance leg is straight before the
knee-bend and is bent afterwards.

The features of this periodic walking motion can also be
found in Figure 5 which shows the non-dimensional
angles and angular velocities of the stance thigh, the
stance shank, the swing thigh and the swing shank in the
periodic walking motion. In this one step process, we can
find qk, which is the angle of the stance leg when the
knee-strike occurs, is -0.381 (rad), and qb, which is the
angle of the stance leg when the knee-bend occurs, is -
0.318 (rad).

This walking motion based on knee-bend behaviour looks
like human beings walking on stairs. The velocity and
step length of the new walking motion is much smaller
than the conventional walking motion, but the new
walking motion is more stable (discussed in Section 4.3).
In order to find the periodic walking motion, we allow
the swing foot to travel briefly below the slope during the
walking process in our simulation. However, this
assumption could be solved by designing stairs or adding
actuators at joints in our further research. Figure 6 shows
that the stance foots normal force decreases sharply at
the end of a step, which is caused by the knee-bend
behaviour. However, the normal force is consistently
positive during the walking process, which indicates that
this periodic gait is a walking motion, since the stance
foot is consistently on the ground, rather than a running
motion.


- 0.4309 0 q rad

0.1391(scaled by ) 0 q gl
- 0.4309 1 q rad

0.1391 1 q
- 0.5608 2 q rad

0.0139 2 q
0.2439 3 q rad

- 0.6033 3 q

Table 3. The initial condition of the periodic walking motion,
using parameters from Table2 and r =0.35 (rad), q* = 0.063 (rad).



Figure 4. The stick figure of the periodic walking motion based on knee-bend behaviour.

4 Int. j. adv. robot. syst., 2013, Vol. 10, 365:2013 www.intechopen.com


Figure 5. The periodic walking motion based on knee-bend
behaviour. (a): angles of stance thigh, stance shank, swing thigh,
swing shank, (b): angular velocities of stance thigh, stance shank,
swing thigh, swing shank. The results are non-dimensionalized
by scaling: time is divided by , velocity is
divided by . Three events are in each step:
swing knee-strike, stance knee-bend and swing heel-strike. This
result was found when the setting was q* = qb - qk =0.063 (rad),
which is the angular difference of the stance leg between the
events knee-strike and knee-bend. The periodic solution of the
walking motion is the initial condition from Table 3.

4. Stability and adaptability discussion
4.1 Walking stability
A stable periodic walking motion requires that a certain
initial condition (Table 3) at one step can repeat itself at
all subsequent steps (see A.5 in Appendix). Even though
there are some small disturbances during walking, the
walking motion can still get back to the periodic walking
solution after a few steps. The maximal absolute
eigenvalue of the Jacobian (max) is usually used to
determine the stability of the walking motion. If max is
less than 1, the walking motion is stable. The smaller this
value, the easier the walking motion is to control.

If max is bigger than 1, the periodic walking motion will
be unstable. Since the max is considered as the multiplier
of disturbance (A.5), beginning with a certain
disturbance, the disturbance of the last step will be
amplified by max at every subsequent step. So, for

Figure 6. The normal force at the stance foot in one step of the
walking.


Figure 7. The maximal absolute eigenvalues of the Jacobian (max)
versus the angular difference of stance knee between knee-strike
and knee-bend (q*) with the slope of 0.35 (rad). If max is less than 1,
the walking motion is stable. The right end of the curve (q*=0.82
(rad)) means that the stance leg is still straight when the heel-strike
occurs, which is the conventional gait design.

walking motions with a max which is bigger than 1, we
can estimate how many steps the walker can walk before
falling down. This estimation could provide a way of
weighting the relative stability of the walking motion. We
assume that if the disturbance is amplified up to the same
order of magnitude of the maximal angle of the legs, the
walker will fall down. Therefore, as the step number
increases, the disturbance is amplified by max at every
step. If the following relation is met, we consider that the
walker will fall down.

*
Ns
max m
q q >
(2)

where qm is the maximal angle of the legs, q is the
disturbance at the beginning of the walking motion, Ns is the
number of steps the walker can walk before falling down.

If the disturbance q is scaled by the maximal angle of the
legs, from relation (2), we have the following relation to
calculate Ns, where q is the scaled disturbance equal to
q / qm.
leg length/gravity
gravity*leg length
5 Kang An and Qijun Chen: A Passive Dynamic Walking Model Based on Knee-Bend Behaviour:
Stability and Adaptability for Walking Down Steep Slopes
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Figure 8. Subsequent steps started with a scaled disturbance of
10
-3
(r=0.35 (rad), q* =0.15 (rad)).

log (1/ )
max
s N q

=
(3)

For our walking model, we have found the stable
periodic walking motion on a range of slopes by
adjusting q*. Figure 7 shows that when q* is in a small
region around 0.063 (rad), the max is less than 1. The
walking motion is very stable with q* in this region.
When q* is at the left side of this stable region, the max is
very big and the walking motion is unstable, but when q*
is in the region between the right side of the stable region
and less than 0.19 (rad), the max is less than 2 which is
small, and the curve is almost flat. We call this region the
acceptable region which means that if q* is in this
region the walking motion is relatively stable. The
walking is easily controlled by actuators. From relation
(3), the number of steps before falling down can be
estimated. For example, themax is 2 at q* =0.15, if it begins
with a scaled disturbance q of 10
-3
, the walker can walk
10 steps before falling down (Figure 8).
4.2 Walking adaptability for slopes
The stable periodic walking motion based on knee-bend
behaviour on a range of slopes (r<0.4 (rad)) can be found
with a different region of q* and the parameters of human
beings from Table 2. The values of max in the stable
walking region in Figure 9 are less than 1, which means
that for a certain slope, we can find a small region of q*
where max <1. The periodic walking motion with this
region of q* is stable. For example, when walking on a
slope with r=0.35 (rad), the stable periodic walking
motion can be found by adjusting q* in the region of
[0.062, 0.066]. Figure 10 shows the initial conditions of the
model walking on a slope with a different slope angle.
When walking on a steeper slope, the swing leg is bent
more and the angle of the stance leg is bigger.

For the region of slopes with r<0.4 (rad), we all can find
the acceptable region (presented in Section 4.1) of q*, in
which the max is bigger than 1 but small and the curve is
almost flat. Especially for a certain q* in the region of
[0.12, 0.18], the acceptable region of all slope conditions
can be included. It indicates that when walking with a
certain q* in this region, the walking motion on an
arbitrary slope in the slope range is relatively stable. The
walker with the new gait can walk more steps than the
conventional gait. For example, choosing q*=0.16 which
means the knee-bend happens when the stance leg rotates
0.16 (rad) forwards after the knee-strike, the max is
around 2 for walking on any of the slopes. The number
of steps before falling down can be calculated
by: . If it starts with a scaled disturbance of
10
-3
, the model can walk around 10 steps before falling
down without any control on an arbitrary slope.


Figure 9. The relationship between stability and q* with the slope
of r<0.4 (rad).


Figure 10. The initial condition of the model walking on slopes
with different slope angles.
4.3 Comparison with the conventional walking motion
In contrast with the angle region (r<0.4 (rad)) for which
the new model could provide stable walking motion, the
stable conventional walking motion can be found with
the slope angle 0.19<r<0.21 in our calculation. The max of
the conventional walking motion in this region is less
than 1 (Figure 11). However, the max will be bigger than 1
when r>0.21 (rad) and increases with the increase of the
slope angle. The conventional walking motion begins to
be unstable. When r<0.19, we do not find a periodic
solution from the conventional walking motion.

In addition, the normal force at the stance foot has been
checked to see whether the stance foot leaves the ground
or not. We have found that the normal force at the
moment just before the heel-strike is minimal in a single
step of the walking, which is probably because of the
centrifugal force generated by the rotation of the stance
leg. Figure 11 also shows that the minimal normal force of
the conventional walking motion decreases with an
increase in the slope angle and will be negative when
2
log (1/ ) s N q =
6 Int. j. adv. robot. syst., 2013, Vol. 10, 365:2013 www.intechopen.com
r>0.28 (rad). So, the stance foot of the conventional
walking will leave the ground when r>0.28 (rad) and the
walker will switch to running. However, the minimal
normal force of the new model is greater than 0 when
r<0.4 (rad). Figure 6 shows that the minimal normal force
of the new model with an angle of r=0.35 is 0.02.


Figure 11. The max (left) and the minimal normal force in one step
(right) of the conventional walking motion versus the slope angle.

The subsequent steps of the two walking motions which
began with a small disturbance on a slope of r=0.27 (rad)
are shown in Figure 12. The new walking motion which
began with a scaled disturbance of 10
-3
is stable (Figure 12
(d)). However, the max of the conventional walking motion
with r= 0.27 (rad) is 5 (Figure 11), which indicates that the
conventional walking motion is very unstable. The
conventional walker can easily fall down with a small
disturbance (Figure 12 (a), (b), (c)). The number of steps
before falling down for the conventional walking motion
can be approximately estimated by . For
example, the scaled disturbance of 10
-3
will lead to falling
down after five steps of walking (Figure 12 (a)).


Figure 12. Subsequent steps started with the initial condition near
the periodic walking solution (r=0.27 (rad)). (a),(b),(c) is the
conventional walking motion which began with a scaled
disturbance ( ) of 10
-3
,10
-6
,10
-10
, respectively. (d) is the new
periodic walking motion of our model (q*=0.087 (rad)), started with
a scaled disturbance ( ) of 10
-3
. In (a), (b), (c), the walker can
walk five, nine, and 13 steps before falling down, respectively.
From Figure 13 & Figure 14, we can find that both the
step length and the walking velocity of the new walking
motion are smaller than the conventional walking motion.
The step length of the conventional walking motion
increases while the step length of the new walking
motion decreases slowly with the increase of the slope
angle. The walking velocities of both walking motions
are almost constant with different slope angles. However,
the conventional walking motion is unstable when r>0.21
(rad) (Figure 11). From the perspective of energy
consumption, the unstable conventional walking gait
needs more additional energy to improve the walking
stability. If we put actuators on the model, controlling the
new walking motion will be more efficient and easier.
Since passive dynamic walking processes exist in the way
human beings walk
[22]
, this means that if human beings
walk down a slope using the conventional walking gait
with a longer step length, the walking would be faster
but would cost more energy to improve the stability.
However, if the new walking gait was used, which is like
the way human beings walk on stairs, the walking would
consume less energy and would be more efficient.



Figure 13. Comparison of the step length of the two walking
motions



Figure 14. Comparison of the walking velocity of the two
walking motions

q
q
5
log (1/ ) s N q =
7 Kang An and Qijun Chen: A Passive Dynamic Walking Model Based on Knee-Bend Behaviour:
Stability and Adaptability for Walking Down Steep Slopes
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5. Conclusions

This paper presents a walking model based on knee-bend
behaviour, which imitates the way human beings walk.
The walking motion includes three events: knee-strike,
knee-bend and heel-strike. A stable periodic walking
motion can be found by adjusting q* which is the angular
difference of the stance leg between the knee-strike and
the knee-bend.

The stability of the proposed walking motion is
determined by q*. When q* is in the stable walking
region, the walking motion is stable. When q* is in the
acceptable region, the walker can walk more steps
before falling down on an arbitrary slope. The walking
motion is more stable than the conventional walking
motion on the same slope.

The adaptability of the proposed walking model to
different slopes is much better than the conventional
walking model. The proposed model can provide stable
walking on a much wider range of slopes, especially for
steep slopes.

In designing real walkers, the proposed walking model
needs less energy for stability. It is more efficient and
easier to control than the conventional walking model.

These results support the claim that our walking model
based on knee-bend behaviour might be a meaningful
means for understanding the knee-bend mechanism in
bipeds walking on slopes. It could also help in the
building of biped prototypes for walking on complex
terrain.

6. Acknowledgments

Thanks to Professor Andy Ruina for a lot of help in this
research. This work is supported by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (No. 61203344), the National
Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 91120308), the
International Technology Cooperation Program (No.
2010DFA12210), Shanghai Technical Personnel Program
(No. 11XD1404800), and the Key Program for the
Fundamental Research of Shanghai Science and
Technology Commission (No. 12JC1408800).

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379-389

Appendix
A.1 Equations of motion
Define (0, 0) as the coordinates of the contact point of the
stance foot in the fixed orthogonal system of coordinates
with Ox along the walking slope and Oy directed upward
(Figure 2. b). A global vector X = (xsts, ysts, xstt, ystt, xhip, yhip,
xswt, yswt, xsws, ysws)
T
which defines the coordinates of the
five mass points describes the whole configuration of the
walking model. By analysing the models configuration,
the expression of X as a function of the generalized
coordinates q is described as follows:

0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
( )
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
sts sf
sts sf
stt s tk
stt s tk
hip s t
hip s t
swt s t th
swt s t th
sws s t t sk
sws s t t sk
x l
y l
x l l
y l l
x l l
X X q
y l l
x l l l
y l l l
x l l l l
y l l l l
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
= = (
(
(

(
(
(

(
(

0
0
1
1
2
2
3
3
sin( )
cos( )
sin( )
cos( )
sin( )
cos( )
sin( )
cos( )
q
q
q
q
q
q
q
q
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
(

(
(


(3)

The equation of motion of the walking model can be
obtained by the Lagrange's equation:

0
d L L
dt q
q
L T V

| |

|
=

\ .

(4)

The Lagrangian L is the difference between the kinetic
energy of the system, T, minus its potential energy, V. By
differentiating equation (3) we obtain:

1
2
T
T V T X M X V gM X

= =
(5)
where the mass matrix is:

=Diag( )
=[ ]
T s s t t h h t t s s
V s t h t s
M m , m, m, m, m , m , m, m, m , m
M 0, m, 0, m, 0, m , 0, m, 0, m
(6)

These equations above yield the equation of motion,
where , are 4*4 matrices, is a 4*1
matrix, and is the constrained joint torques.

( ) + ( , ) ( , )
T
c
M q q C q q q G q r J u

+ =
(7)
A.2 Knee-strike
Knee-strike happens at the moment when the swing leg
straightens, and the angles of the swing thigh and the
shank are the same. The geometric collision condition is:

2 3 = q q

(8)

We assume that the collision at the knee-strike is a fully
inelastic impact. The equation of the angle relation at the
knee-strike is as follows, where the + means just after
the impact, and the - means just before the impact:

1 0 0 0
0 1 0 0
0 0 1 0
0 0 0 1
k q q J q
+
(
(
(
= =
(
(

(9)

The knee-strike collision is considered an equivalent
instantaneous impulse torque in a swinging knee during
the knee-strike impact. The angular velocity relation can
be obtained below, where P is the constrained impulse
torque, Jks=[0,0,1,-1].

( ) = ( )
T
ks
M q q M q q J P

+ +

(10)

The constrained condition of the knee-strike is:

0
ks
J q

+
=
(11)

From (10),(11) and the relation M(q
+
)=M(q
-
) which can be
obtained by q
+
=q
-
from (9), the following relation is
obtained.

1
( ) 0
T
ks ks ks
J q J M q J P

=
(12)

Equation (12) yields the constrained impulse:

1 1
=( ( ) )
T
ks ks ks
P J M q J J q

(13)

The angular velocity just after the knee-strike can be
obtained by (10), (13), where I is the identity matrix.
( ) M q ( , ) C q q

( , ) G q r
T
c
J u
9 Kang An and Qijun Chen: A Passive Dynamic Walking Model Based on Knee-Bend Behaviour:
Stability and Adaptability for Walking Down Steep Slopes
www.intechopen.com
+ 1 1 1
=( ( ) ( ( ) ) )
T T
k
ks ks ks ks
q I M q J J M q J J q V q


=
(14)

Therefore, the models condition at the knee-strike can be
expressed by (9), (14):

0
=
0
k
k
q q
J
V
q q
+

+







(15)

A.3 Heel-strike

The end of a walking step is defined as the instant that
the swing foot makes contact with the ground at the heel-
strike. The geometric collision condition is:

0 1 2 3 *cos( ) *cos( ) *cos( ) *cos( )=0 s t t s l q l q l q l q

+
(16)

Another geometric condition is q2=q3 which means the
swing leg is straight at the heel-strike. The collision at the
heel-strike is also assumed to be a fully inelastic impact
and the double stance occurs instantaneously. The angle
relation equation at the heel-strike is given below:

0 0 0 1
0 0 1 0
0 1 0 0
1 0 0 0
h q q J q
+



= =



(17)

The instantaneous angular velocity relation during the
heel-strike given below is expressed using the equation of
the angular momentum conservation, where Qh(q) is the
coefficient matrix of the angular momentum
conservation. The angular momentum is conserved
through the collision at the heel-strike for the following
parts: (a) the whole model about the swing foot contact
point, (b) the former stance leg (new swing leg after the
heel-strike) about the hip, (c) the stance shank (new swing
shank) about the stance knee.

( ) ( ) h h Q q q Q q q

+ +
=
(18)

Equation (18) yields the expression of the angular velocity
just after the heel-strike:

1
( ( )) ( )
+
h h h q Q q Q q q V q

+
= =
(19)

The models condition just after the impact can be
obtained by (17), (19):

0
=
0
h
h
q q
J
V
q q
+

+







(20)

A.4 Constrained joint torques
During the process of one step, the stance leg or swing leg
must be kept straight in some motion sections.
Mechanical methods are always used in the design of real
robots to keep legs straight, but in our simulation, the
constrained joint torques in function (7) are used in the
model to keep the legs straight in the walking process.
There are three motion sections in one step process: (a)
the stance leg stays straight before the instant knee-strike;
(b) the stance leg and swing leg both stay straight
between the instants of the knee-strike and the knee-
bend; (c) the swing leg stays straight after the instant
from the knee-bend until the heel-strike. The constrained
condition of section (a) at the stance knee is:

[ , , ]=0 =[1, 1, 0, 0] st st J q q q J


(21)

The constrained condition of section (b) at the two knees
is:
1 1 0 0
[ , , ]=0 =
0 0 1 1
ss ss J q q q J

(22)

The constrained condition of section (c) at the swing knee
is given below:

[ , , ]=0 =[0, 0, 1, 1] sw sw J q q q J


(23)

From function (7), (21), (22), (23), we obtain the following
relation, where Jc is Jst, Jss, Jsw in section (a), (b), (c)
respectively.

1
= ( ) ( ( , ) ( , ) )=0
T
c c c
J q J M q C q q q G q r J u

+ +
(24)

Function (24) yields the constrained joint torque:

1 1 1
( ( ) ) ( ) ( ( , ) ( , ))
T
c c c
u J M q J J M q C q q q G q r


= +
(25)

Therefore, the whole motion sections can be expressed by
putting function (25) into (7).
A.5 Periodic walking motion
The whole walking process including the motion parts
and the collision parts can be calculated by the analysis
above with a set of initial conditions qn. The mapping
from the initial conditions qn of one step to the next is
described by a step-to-step function:

1
( )
n n
q f q
+
=
(26)

The periodic walking is defined after one step in the
walking process and the initial condition qn derives the
identical initial condition for the next step:

10 Int. j. adv. robot. syst., 2013, Vol. 10, 365:2013 www.intechopen.com
1 n n
q q
+
=
(27)

From (26), (27), we can obtain the periodic walking
solution. The initial condition qc of the periodic walking
maps to itself:

( )
c c
q f q =
(28)

If started with qc, the walker will walk stably. However, if
it begins with qn = qc + qn, which is close to qc, a
linearization of the mapping function is used to analyse
the periodic walking:











































1 1
+ ( ) ( + ) ( ) ,
with /
c n n n c n c n
n
q q q f q f q q f q J q
J f q
+ +
= = = +
=
(29)

The stability of the walking is determined by Jacobian J.
The difference qn at one step can transfer to qn+1 at the
next step with the multiplier J. If the maximal absolute
eigenvalue of the Jacobian J (max) is less than 1, all the
eigenvalues of the Jacobian J are within the unit circle, the
difference qn will be smaller and smaller from step to
step. The periodic walking will be stable for small
disturbances.


11 Kang An and Qijun Chen: A Passive Dynamic Walking Model Based on Knee-Bend Behaviour:
Stability and Adaptability for Walking Down Steep Slopes
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