Hydraulic servomechanisms and demanding applications such as military robots have led to increasing interest.  Motivated by Big-dog in US, KNR has joined a four-legged robot project and developed all four legs of the walking robot with hydraulic actuators.

Because the legs of field robots need enough torque to be able to support the weight of the robot and move the robot, hydraulic actuators are an excellent fit. KNR teamed up with KITECH in the development of the Korean quadruped robot ‘Jinpoong’. KNR designed the actuators and legs for the field robot, which also increased the possibility of KNR’s actuators being used in defense. KNR provided optimized designs for leg modules by combined use of linear and rotary actuators to drive the multi-leg robot. KNR is also part of a consortium with Hyundai Motors and Hyundai Rotem which manages the research and development ‘Hydraulic Wearable Robot’ project. In that project, KNR is currently developing actuators and other components for the upper- and lower-body sections of the robot, and is also developing the upper-body structure. This research can be beneficial for developing other various walking robots. Much of the research is still ongoing, and there are opportunities for a wide variety of applications.