Method of 3-step switching for tri-ped robot using piezo actuator

This paper develops a method of 3-step switching for a tri-ped (or tri-legged) robot using three piezo actuators. Each piezo actuator is of linear type driven by a piezo disk, a mechanism and a controller. Three piezo actuators individually drive three legs of the robot via P-R-R joints and links. The robot is able to move in any direction by an approach of 3-step switching based on stiffness rebalance. Analysis shows that inverse kinematics is better than forward kinematics to generate the command of 3-step switching by a back-propagation neural network.