From the bounding gait simulation, it was determined that the amplitude the legs should move through should be 25° for maximum speed and stability. It was also found that in order to obtain a suitably small turning radius(~ 3 body lengths), the amplitude of the legshad to increase by 5° on the outer radius of the turn and decrease by 5° on the inner radius of the turn. Thus a mechanism is needed to vary the stroke of the legs. This sort of mechanism is known as a variable stroke mechanism and have myriad number of applications. Research revealed several candidate mechanisms that could be used to produce a variable stroke. The first one
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| Variable piston stroke engine |