Chaotic Behavior of a Two Mass Bouncing System

This study investigates the behavior of simple two mass bouncing systems which are released from a certain height. A nonlinearity exists in the discontinuity of the flight and the ground modes, although the behavior of the systems is linear in each mode. Such oscillators provide models for mechanical systems such as legged systems for hopping robots. The phase plane technique and the power spectrum analysis are used to investigate the stability of bouncing systems and the chaos that may occur. The effects of the spring constants and the damping coefficient at the ground contact on the bouncing behavior is also investigated.