MODEL BASED DEVELOPMENT OF A 3D PRINTED BIPED ROBOT

As 3D printing technology becomes more ubiquitous and pervasive, printed robot structures are likely to become popular. However, these 3D printed structures have inherent flexibility which causes link deflections and vibrations that lead to difficulties in maintaining gait and produce instabilities during motion. In this paper a biped robot, realized with 3D printing techniques, was modeled and its gait Was simulated under position control. Spring and damper elements are used within powered joints to model the link flexibility. Servos were placed at the joints and an open-loop gait trajectory was executed by, posing the robot through a series of servo angles. The gait of the printed robot was designed using the model. The printed robot's stability and accelerations during the motion were characterized with 3-axis accelerometers and gyroscopes mounted on the robot. The acceleration measurements from the printed robot are then compared with the model behavior.