Tail use in bioinspired quadrupedal locomotion

Abstract

Tails are seen in nature to be used in an amazing number of different applications. Many of these applications seen in nature may be of use to bioinspired roboticists in the future. I have provided a brief review of tail use as seen in nature. An experiment was performed using the MIT Cheetah to investigate the usefulness of tails in one particular instance. The Cheetah was set to stand while a large, standardized disturbance was introduced by means of a clay "wrecking ball." Two cases were observed: one where the tail was actively stationary and another where the tail was swung in order to counteract the disturbance. The actively swung tail was seen to keep the body in the stable region longer than the stationary tail, thus providing the robot additional time to correct for the disturbance with the next foot fall.