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Validation and verification of a high-fidelity computational model for a bounding robot's parallel actuated elastic spine

We document the design and preliminary numerical simulation study of a high fidelity model of Canid, a recently introduced bounding robot. Canid is a free-standing, power-autonomous quadrupedal machine constructed from standard commercially available electromechanical and structural elements, incorporating compliant C-shaped legs like those of the decade old RHex design, but departing from that standard (and, to the best of our knowledge, from any prior) robot platform in its parallel actuated elastic spine. We have used a commercial modeling package to develop a finite-element model of the actuated, cable-driven, rigid-plate-reinforced harness for the carbon-fiber spring that joins the robot’s fore- and hind-quarters. We compare a numerical model of this parallel actuated elastic spine with empirical data from preliminary physical experiments with the most important component of the spine assembly: the composite leaf spring. Specifically, we report our progress in tuning the mechanical properties of a standard modal approximation to a conventional compliant beam model whose boundary conditions represent constraints imposed by the actuated cable driven vertebral plates that comprise the active control affordance over the spine. We conclude with a brief look ahead at near-term future experiments that will compare predictions of this fitted composite spring model with data taken from the physical spine flexed in isolation from the actuated harness.