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A robot system design to minimize the robot weight while producing multi-degree-of-freedom (DOF) functioning is proposed. This method aims to couple mutually the degrees of freedom of the robot in such a way that, so far as possible, they can be jointly driven in the robots most common modes of operation. The method is called coupled drive. As an evaluation function for the coupled drive, an actuation index, which is the ratio of the power for the actuation to the whole output power to be provided to the robot system, is introduced. A simulation experiment involving a quadruped walking robot with suckers ascending the vertical surface of a wall is carried out. The experiment deduces by linear programming a walk by which the actuation ratio of the robot is maximized when specific configurations or gaits of the walking robot are given.>
Hirose et al. (Tue,) studied this question.