302 research outputs found
Pattern Generation for Walking on Slippery Terrains
In this paper, we extend state of the art Model Predictive Control (MPC)
approaches to generate safe bipedal walking on slippery surfaces. In this
setting, we formulate walking as a trade off between realizing a desired
walking velocity and preserving robust foot-ground contact. Exploiting this
formulation inside MPC, we show that safe walking on various flat terrains can
be achieved by compromising three main attributes, i. e. walking velocity
tracking, the Zero Moment Point (ZMP) modulation, and the Required Coefficient
of Friction (RCoF) regulation. Simulation results show that increasing the
walking velocity increases the possibility of slippage, while reducing the
slippage possibility conflicts with reducing the tip-over possibility of the
contact and vice versa.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figure
A Reactive and Efficient Walking Pattern Generator for Robust Bipedal Locomotion
Available possibilities to prevent a biped robot from falling down in the
presence of severe disturbances are mainly Center of Pressure (CoP) modulation,
step location and timing adjustment, and angular momentum regulation. In this
paper, we aim at designing a walking pattern generator which employs an optimal
combination of these tools to generate robust gaits. In this approach, first,
the next step location and timing are decided consistent with the commanded
walking velocity and based on the Divergent Component of Motion (DCM)
measurement. This stage which is done by a very small-size Quadratic Program
(QP) uses the Linear Inverted Pendulum Model (LIPM) dynamics to adapt the
switching contact location and time. Then, consistent with the first stage, the
LIPM with flywheel dynamics is used to regenerate the DCM and angular momentum
trajectories at each control cycle. This is done by modulating the CoP and
Centroidal Momentum Pivot (CMP) to realize a desired DCM at the end of current
step. Simulation results show the merit of this reactive approach in generating
robust and dynamically consistent walking patterns
Push Recovery of a Position-Controlled Humanoid Robot Based on Capture Point Feedback Control
In this paper, a combination of ankle and hip strategy is used for push
recovery of a position-controlled humanoid robot. Ankle strategy and hip
strategy are equivalent to Center of Pressure (CoP) and Centroidal Moment Pivot
(CMP) regulation respectively. For controlling the CMP and CoP we need a
torque-controlled robot, however most of the conventional humanoid robots are
position controlled. In this regard, we present an efficient way for
implementation of the hip and ankle strategies on a position controlled
humanoid robot. We employ a feedback controller to compensate the capture point
error. Using our scheme, a simple and practical push recovery controller is
designed which can be implemented on the most of the conventional humanoid
robots without the need for torque sensors. The effectiveness of the proposed
approach is verified through push recovery experiments on SURENA-Mini humanoid
robot under severe pushes
3LP: a linear 3D-walking model including torso and swing dynamics
In this paper, we present a new model of biped locomotion which is composed
of three linear pendulums (one per leg and one for the whole upper body) to
describe stance, swing and torso dynamics. In addition to double support, this
model has different actuation possibilities in the swing hip and stance ankle
which could be widely used to produce different walking gaits. Without the need
for numerical time-integration, closed-form solutions help finding periodic
gaits which could be simply scaled in certain dimensions to modulate the motion
online. Thanks to linearity properties, the proposed model can provide a
computationally fast platform for model predictive controllers to predict the
future and consider meaningful inequality constraints to ensure feasibility of
the motion. Such property is coming from describing dynamics with joint torques
directly and therefore, reflecting hardware limitations more precisely, even in
the very abstract high level template space. The proposed model produces
human-like torque and ground reaction force profiles and thus, compared to
point-mass models, it is more promising for precise control of humanoid robots.
Despite being linear and lacking many other features of human walking like CoM
excursion, knee flexion and ground clearance, we show that the proposed model
can predict one of the main optimality trends in human walking, i.e. nonlinear
speed-frequency relationship. In this paper, we mainly focus on describing the
model and its capabilities, comparing it with human data and calculating
optimal human gait variables. Setting up control problems and advanced
biomechanical analysis still remain for future works.Comment: Journal paper under revie
Push recovery with stepping strategy based on time-projection control
In this paper, we present a simple control framework for on-line push
recovery with dynamic stepping properties. Due to relatively heavy legs in our
robot, we need to take swing dynamics into account and thus use a linear model
called 3LP which is composed of three pendulums to simulate swing and torso
dynamics. Based on 3LP equations, we formulate discrete LQR controllers and use
a particular time-projection method to adjust the next footstep location
on-line during the motion continuously. This adjustment, which is found based
on both pelvis and swing foot tracking errors, naturally takes the swing
dynamics into account. Suggested adjustments are added to the Cartesian 3LP
gaits and converted to joint-space trajectories through inverse kinematics.
Fixed and adaptive foot lift strategies also ensure enough ground clearance in
perturbed walking conditions. The proposed structure is robust, yet uses very
simple state estimation and basic position tracking. We rely on the physical
series elastic actuators to absorb impacts while introducing simple laws to
compensate their tracking bias. Extensive experiments demonstrate the
functionality of different control blocks and prove the effectiveness of
time-projection in extreme push recovery scenarios. We also show self-produced
and emergent walking gaits when the robot is subject to continuous dragging
forces. These gaits feature dynamic walking robustness due to relatively soft
springs in the ankles and avoiding any Zero Moment Point (ZMP) control in our
proposed architecture.Comment: 20 pages journal pape
A Modular Framework to Generate Robust Biped Locomotion: From Planning to Control
Biped robots are inherently unstable because of their complex kinematics as
well as dynamics. Despite the many research efforts in developing biped
locomotion, the performance of biped locomotion is still far from the
expectations. This paper proposes a model-based framework to generate stable
biped locomotion. The core of this framework is an abstract dynamics model
which is composed of three masses to consider the dynamics of stance leg, torso
and swing leg for minimizing the tracking problems. According to this dynamics
model, we propose a modular walking reference trajectories planner which takes
into account obstacles to plan all the references. Moreover, this dynamics
model is used to formulate the controller as a Model Predictive Control (MPC)
scheme which can consider some constraints in the states of the system, inputs,
outputs and also mixed input-output. The performance and the robustness of the
proposed framework are validated by performing several numerical simulations
using MATLAB. Moreover, the framework is deployed on a simulated
torque-controlled humanoid to verify its performance and robustness. The
simulation results show that the proposed framework is capable of generating
biped locomotion robustly
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