BOOM location: TBA

Advisor:
Team members: Christopher Cheng, Daniel Dauplaise, Christopher Dudasik, Alexander Gates, Hon Hoi, Tianyi Li, Jinpeng Ren, Jeffrey Schvey, Elianna Weyer

Cornell Fe is a student-initiated project team in Cornell’s College of Engineering dedicated to the design and development of energy-efficient bipedal walking robots. Bipedal walking is one of the most immediate challenges in robot design today. The majority of successful walking robots to date are the result of a design philosophy coined joint-angle-control—a simplistic method with steep energy costs. Honda’s ASIMO, for instance, cannot sustain an hour of walking per charge. Our alternative approach to this problem is to combine precision control with the principles of passive dynamics. Learning from the Cornell powered robot, featured in Science and on CNN, and its fully passive siblings, we aim to build the world’s most energy efficient and reliable walking robot. In the upcoming months, we also aim to set the world distance record for the longest robot walk on a single charge. For most people, walking is a mundane task requiring little effort. However, bipedal walking is actually a complex form of locomotion. First, walking requires a keen sense of balance and coordination. Second, human walking takes advantage of the mechanical structure of the body, which allows us to move efficiently. Bipedal walking is the basis of humanoid robotics. Until recently, nearly all of today’s humanoid robots attempt to mimic the motions of human walking through continuous control of each joint angle with high-power motors. This is unnatural and energy intensive. Our approach to robot design seeks to take advantage of the dynamics of walking to achieve a natural gait.