Review and analysis of quadruped robots with articulated spine

Recently, high performance quadruped robots have obtained extensive attention at home and broad, the related research work was developed in view of how to improve the highly dynamic characteristics, high environmental adaptability and heavy payload capacity of quadruped robots and has achieved certain achievements. In order to improve the highly dynamic characteristics of quadruped robots and through analyzing the skeletal anatomy and motion mechanism of the cheetah, many researchers designed the bionic quadruped robots with articulated spine based on imitating the quadrupedal mammal cheetah with torso degrees of freedom and high speed ability, which can improve the maneuverability and stability of the quadruped robots with articulated torso by means of the coordination of torso and legs. Therefore, this paper focuses on the quadruped robots with articulated torso. In a brief summary of previous research results of quadruped robots with highly dynamic characteristics, this paper reviews the state-of-the-art of quadruped robots with articulated torso, and based on the analysis of the research status of the quadruped robots with articulated torso, the research focus and developing trend of them are given.