A novel gait generation for biped walking robots based on mechanical energy constraint

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel energy-based control law for biped robots based on an analysis of passive dynamic walking. Firstly we discuss the essence of dynamic walking wing a passive walker on a gentle slope. In the second, we propose a simple and effective control law which imitates the energy behavior in evev cycle considering the ZMP condition and other factors of the active walker. The control strategy is formed by the feature of mechanical energy dissipation and restoration. By the eflect of the proposed method, the robot can exhibit natural and reasonable walk on a level ground without any gait design in advance. The validity of the proposed method is examined by numerical simulations and experiments.

Minimalistic control of a compass gait robot in rough terrain

“…A few potential research directions in the future include the extension of physical model with knee and ankle joints as previously shown in [10], [12], [19], and the enhancement of the control architecture with more dynamic features [13], [18], [20], [21].…”

“…And third, due to its simplicity, the model can be easily extended to its variations for a systematic analysis. iida@csail.mit.edu, russt@mit.edu Previously this simple model showed limit cycles of passive dynamic walking in slopes [9], and the model was enhanced with various motor control to deal with a flat terrain [10], [11], [12], [13] and with the other variations of environment [14], [15], [16], [17], [18]. The investigations of this model, however, were mainly conducted in simulation with a few exceptions [10], [12], and the model has not been tested in the real-world rough terrains previously.…”

Minimalistic control of biped walking in rough terrain

“…Previously, the compass gait model was investigated in terms of mechanical interactions in a passive regime (McGeer 1990;Garcia et al 1998;Goswami et al 1998;Su and Dingwell 2007), and its variations were developed for investigating, for example, knee dynamics and locomotion stability (van der Linde 1999; Miyakoshi and Cheng 2004;Asano et al 2007;Harata et al 2007;Kinugasa et al 2008), shapes and actuation of foot segments (Kuo 2002;Ono et al 2004;Adamczyk et al 2006;Kim et al 2007;Kwan and Hubbard 2007), mass distribution (Hass et al 2006), and lateral balancing (Kuo 1999). Control architectures for the compass gait model have also been studied with respect to energy based optimal control (McGeer 1988;Goswami et al 1997;Asano et al 2000;Spong 2003;Spong and Bhatia 2003;Asano et al 2004;Pekarek et al 2007), phase resetting mechanisms and nonlinear oscillators (Kurz and Stergiou 2005;Aoi and Tsuchiya 2005, and control optimization in rough terrains (Pratt et al 2001;Tedrake 2008a, 2008b). Through these previous studies on the compass gait model and its variations, we have gained accumulated knowledge about the stability and controllability, whereas most of the studies above were conducted in flat environment or only in simulation.…”

Stability Analysis of a Simple Active Biped Robot with a Torso on Level Ground Based on Passive Walking Mechanisms

“…Biped robots based on the passive walking mechanisms were proposed (e.g. Goswami et al, 1997;Asano at al., 2004;Asano at al., 2005;Spong & Bullo, 2005), but the robots are mainly controlled by ankle torque, which has drawback from the viewpoints of Zero Moment Point (ZMP) condition, discussed in (Asano et al, 2005). The limitations of the passive-dynamic walkers and the ankle-torque controlled walkers should be addressed.…”