Legged robots promise higher versatility and the ability to traverse much more difficult terrains than their wheeled counterparts. Even though the use of legged robots have increased drastically in the last few years, they are still not close to the performance seen from legged animals in nature. Robotic legs are typically fairly simple mechanically, and few feature an ankle joint, even though most land mammals have one. The ankle could be a key to better performance and stability for legged robots, and in this paper we investigate how the use of an ankle in a bipedal robot could improve its performance when combined with evolutionary techniques for gait optimization. Our study shows, both in simulation and physical experiments, that the addition of an ankle joint results in greater walking speeds for a supported bipedal robot.

翻译：脚踏两脚机器人的脚踝可能是提高脚踏两脚机器人性能和稳定性的关键,在本文中,我们研究双脚机械人使用双脚机器人如何在与锻炼技巧相结合以优化玩耍时改善它的性能。 我们的研究显示,在模拟和物理实验中,脚踏两脚机械人的双脚联动会提高双脚机器人的行走速度。