The issue of energy management in walking machines

The energy management is a serious issue in the platforms of mobile robots, and especially walking robots. The solutions are sought so as to obtain the furthest possible range with the energy resources at the disposal. Properly adjusted configuration of the drives and the manner of energy management has a key impact on effectiveness of the drives. The article presents the most important features of the basic driving systems, possible configurations, and steering manners along with the assessment of their effectiveness. The article will present classical and hybrid drives. The authors present a sample analysis of energy “costs” of steering for the selected systems. The analysis will be supported with results of the simulation performed with the use of constructed computer models. The guidelines for designing of the systems for walking platforms will be proposed, enabling to obtain high dynamics and energy efficiency of the system.