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Main Authors: Cervettini, Guglielmo, Mauceri, Roberto, Coppola, Alex, Bergonti, Fabio, Fiorio, Luca, Maggiali, Marco, Pucci, Daniele
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.16469
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author Cervettini, Guglielmo
Mauceri, Roberto
Coppola, Alex
Bergonti, Fabio
Fiorio, Luca
Maggiali, Marco
Pucci, Daniele
author_facet Cervettini, Guglielmo
Mauceri, Roberto
Coppola, Alex
Bergonti, Fabio
Fiorio, Luca
Maggiali, Marco
Pucci, Daniele
contents The design of the humanoid ankle is critical for safe and efficient ground interaction. Key factors such as mechanical compliance and motor mass distribution have driven the adoption of parallel mechanism architectures. However, selecting the optimal configuration depends on both actuator availability and task requirements. We propose a unified methodology for the design and evaluation of parallel ankle mechanisms. A multi-objective optimization synthesizes the mechanism geometry, the resulting solutions are evaluated using a scalar cost function that aggregates key performance metrics for cross-architecture comparison. We focus on two representative architectures: the Spherical-Prismatic-Universal (SPU) and the Revolute-Spherical-Universal (RSU). For both, we resolve the kinematics, and for the RSU, introduce a parameterization that ensures workspace feasibility and accelerates optimization. We validate our approach by redesigning the ankle of an existing humanoid robot. The optimized RSU consistently outperforms both the original serial design and a conventionally engineered RSU, reducing the cost function by up to 41% and 14%, respectively.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_16469
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Framework for Optimal Ankle Design of Humanoid Robots
Cervettini, Guglielmo
Mauceri, Roberto
Coppola, Alex
Bergonti, Fabio
Fiorio, Luca
Maggiali, Marco
Pucci, Daniele
Robotics
The design of the humanoid ankle is critical for safe and efficient ground interaction. Key factors such as mechanical compliance and motor mass distribution have driven the adoption of parallel mechanism architectures. However, selecting the optimal configuration depends on both actuator availability and task requirements. We propose a unified methodology for the design and evaluation of parallel ankle mechanisms. A multi-objective optimization synthesizes the mechanism geometry, the resulting solutions are evaluated using a scalar cost function that aggregates key performance metrics for cross-architecture comparison. We focus on two representative architectures: the Spherical-Prismatic-Universal (SPU) and the Revolute-Spherical-Universal (RSU). For both, we resolve the kinematics, and for the RSU, introduce a parameterization that ensures workspace feasibility and accelerates optimization. We validate our approach by redesigning the ankle of an existing humanoid robot. The optimized RSU consistently outperforms both the original serial design and a conventionally engineered RSU, reducing the cost function by up to 41% and 14%, respectively.
title A Framework for Optimal Ankle Design of Humanoid Robots
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.16469