Walking Made Simple

Abstract

It is possible to design robots that walk in a humanlike manner by providing them with motors to drive every joint and a computer that tells every joint what its angle should be. There are many successful robots of this ilk, but they are very complex and use far more energy than would a walking human. In his Perspective, Alexander discusses a different type of robot inspired by toys that walk passively downhill. These robots have much simpler control systems and use much less energy than conventional walking robots.