This paper introduces a way to systematically investigate the effect of compliant prismatic spines in quadrupedal robot locomotion. We develop a novel spring-loaded lockable spine module, together with a new Spinal Compliance-Integrated Quadruped (SCIQ) platform for both empirical and numerical research. Individual spine tests reveal beneficial spinal characteristics like a degressive spring, and validate the efficacy of a proposed compact locking/unlocking mechanism for the spine. Benchmark vertical jumping and landing tests with our robot show comparable jumping performance between the rigid and compliant spines. An observed advantage of the compliant spine module is that it can alleviate more challenging landing conditions by absorbing impact energy and dissipating the remainder via feet slipping through much in cat-like stretching fashion.

翻译：本文提出了一种系统研究柔性棱柱脊柱对四足机器人运动影响的方法。我们开发了一种新型弹簧加载可锁定脊柱模块，并构建了脊柱柔顺集成四足机器人（SCIQ）平台，用于实验与数值研究。独立脊柱测试揭示了有益的脊柱特性（如减变刚度弹簧），并验证了所提出的紧凑型锁定/解锁机制的有效性。基于机器人平台的基准垂直跳跃与落地测试表明，刚性脊柱与柔性脊柱在跳跃性能上相当。我们观察到柔性脊柱模块的显著优势在于：它可通过吸收冲击能量，并借助类似猫伸腿方式使足部滑移耗散剩余能量，从而缓解更具挑战性的落地条件。