Analyzing Bifurcation, Stability and Chaos for a Passive Walking Biped Model with a Sole Foot

Human walking is an action with low energy consumption. Passive walking models (PWMs) can present this intrinsic characteristic. Simplicity in the biped helps to decrease the energy loss of the system. On the other hand, sufficient parts should be considered to increase the similarity of the model's behavior to the original action. In this paper, the dynamic model for passive walking biped with unidirectional fixed flat soles of the feet is presented, which consists of two inverted pendulums with L-shaped bodies. This model can capture the effects of sole foot in walking. By adding the sole foot, the number of phases of a gait increases to two. The nonlinear dynamic models for each phase and the transition rules are determined, and the stable and unstable periodic motions are calculated. The stability situations are obtained for different conditions of walking. Finally, the bifurcation diagrams are presented for studying the effects of the sole foot. Poincare section, Lyapunov exponents, and bifurcation diagrams are used to analyze stability and chaotic behavior. Simulation results indicate that the sole foot has such a significant impression on the dynamic behavior of the system that it should be considered in the simple PWMs.