Stabilization of Energy-Conserving Gaits for Point-Foot Planar Bipeds

The problem of designing and stabilizing impact-free, energy-conserving gaits is considered for underactuated, point-foot planar bipeds. Virtual holonomic constraints are used to design energy-conserving gaits. A desired gait corresponds to a periodic hybrid orbit and is stabilized using the Impulse Controlled Poincar\é Map approach. Numerical simulations for the case of a five-link biped demonstrate convergence to a desired gait from arbitrary initial conditions.