Asymptotically Stable Walking of a Five-Link Underactuated 3D Bipedal Robot

This paper presents three feedback controllers that achieve an asymptotically stable, periodic, and fast walking gait for a 3D (spatial) bipedal robot consisting of a torso, two legs, and passive (unactuated) point feet. The contact between the robot and the walking surface is assumed to inhibit yaw rotation. The studied robot has 8 DOF in the single support phase and 6 actuators. The interest of studying robots with point feet is that the robot's natural dynamics must be explicitly taken into account to achieve balance while walking. We use an extension of the method of virtual constraints and hybrid zero dynamics, in order to simultaneously compute a periodic orbit and an autonomous feedback controller that realizes the orbit. This method allows the computations to be carried out on a 2-DOF subsystem of the 8-DOF robot model. The stability of the walking gait under closed-loop control is evaluated with the linearization of the restricted Poincar\'e map of the hybrid zero dynamics. Three strategies are explored. The first strategy consists of imposing a stability condition during the search of a periodic gait by optimization. The second strategy uses an event-based controller. In the third approach, the effect of output selection is discussed and a pertinent choice of outputs is proposed, leading to stabilization without the use of a supplemental event-based controller

Bio-Inspired Robotics

Modern robotic technologies have enabled robots to operate in a variety of unstructured and dynamically-changing environments, in addition to traditional structured environments. Robots have, thus, become an important element in our everyday lives. One key approach to develop such intelligent and autonomous robots is to draw inspiration from biological systems. Biological structure, mechanisms, and underlying principles have the potential to provide new ideas to support the improvement of conventional robotic designs and control. Such biological principles usually originate from animal or even plant models, for robots, which can sense, think, walk, swim, crawl, jump or even fly. Thus, it is believed that these bio-inspired methods are becoming increasingly important in the face of complex applications. Bio-inspired robotics is leading to the study of innovative structures and computing with sensory–motor coordination and learning to achieve intelligence, flexibility, stability, and adaptation for emergent robotic applications, such as manipulation, learning, and control. This Special Issue invites original papers of innovative ideas and concepts, new discoveries and improvements, and novel applications and business models relevant to the selected topics of ``Bio-Inspired Robotics''. Bio-Inspired Robotics is a broad topic and an ongoing expanding field. This Special Issue collates 30 papers that address some of the important challenges and opportunities in this broad and expanding field

Single wheel robot: gyroscopical stabilization on ground and on incline.

by Loi-Wah Sun.Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2000.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 77-81).Abstracts in English and Chinese.Abstract --- p.iAcknowledgments --- p.iiiContents --- p.vList of Figures --- p.viiList of Tables --- p.viiiChapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1Chapter 1.1 --- Motivation --- p.1Chapter 1.1.1 --- Literature review --- p.2Chapter 1.1.2 --- Gyroscopic precession --- p.5Chapter 1.2 --- Thesis overview --- p.7Chapter 2 --- Dynamics of the robot on ground --- p.9Chapter 2.1 --- System model re-derivation --- p.10Chapter 2.1.1 --- Linearized model --- p.15Chapter 2.2 --- A state feedback control --- p.16Chapter 2.3 --- Dynamic characteristics of the system --- p.18Chapter 2.4 --- Simulation study --- p.19Chapter 2.4.1 --- The self-stabilizing dynamics effect of the single wheel robot --- p.21Chapter 2.4.2 --- The Tilting effect of flywheel on the robot --- p.23Chapter 2.5 --- Dynamic parameters analysis --- p.25Chapter 2.5.1 --- Swinging pendulum --- p.25Chapter 2.5.2 --- Analysis of radius ratios --- p.27Chapter 2.5.3 --- Analysis of mass ratios --- p.30Chapter 3 --- Dynamics of the robot on incline --- p.33Chapter 3.1 --- Modeling of rolling disk on incline --- p.33Chapter 3.1.1 --- Disk rolls up on an inclined plane --- p.37Chapter 3.2 --- Modeling of single wheel robot on incline --- p.39Chapter 3.2.1 --- Kinematic constraints --- p.40Chapter 3.2.2 --- Equations of motion --- p.41Chapter 3.2.3 --- Model simplification --- p.43Chapter 3.2.4 --- Linearized model --- p.46Chapter 4 --- Control of the robot on incline --- p.47Chapter 4.1 --- A state feedback control --- p.47Chapter 4.1.1 --- Simulation study --- p.49Chapter 4.2 --- Backstepping-based control --- p.51Chapter 4.2.1 --- Simulation study --- p.53Chapter 4.2.2 --- The effect of the spinning rate of flywheel --- p.56Chapter 4.2.3 --- Simulation study --- p.58Chapter 4.2.4 --- Roll up case --- p.58Chapter 4.2.5 --- Roll down case --- p.58Chapter 5 --- Motion planning --- p.61Chapter 5.1 --- Performance index --- p.61Chapter 5.2 --- Condition of rolling up --- p.62Chapter 5.3 --- Motion planning of rolling Up --- p.65Chapter 5.3.1 --- Method I : Orientation change --- p.65Chapter 5.3.2 --- Method II : Change the initial velocities --- p.69Chapter 5.4 --- Wheel rolls Down --- p.70Chapter 5.4.1 --- Terminal velocity of rolling body down --- p.73Chapter 6 --- Summary --- p.75Chapter 6.1 --- Contributions --- p.75Chapter 6.2 --- Future Works --- p.76Bibliography --- p.7

Climbing and Walking Robots

Nowadays robotics is one of the most dynamic fields of scientific researches. The shift of robotics researches from manufacturing to services applications is clear. During the last decades interest in studying climbing and walking robots has been increased. This increasing interest has been in many areas that most important ones of them are: mechanics, electronics, medical engineering, cybernetics, controls, and computers. Today’s climbing and walking robots are a combination of manipulative, perceptive, communicative, and cognitive abilities and they are capable of performing many tasks in industrial and non- industrial environments. Surveillance, planetary exploration, emergence rescue operations, reconnaissance, petrochemical applications, construction, entertainment, personal services, intervention in severe environments, transportation, medical and etc are some applications from a very diverse application fields of climbing and walking robots. By great progress in this area of robotics it is anticipated that next generation climbing and walking robots will enhance lives and will change the way the human works, thinks and makes decisions. This book presents the state of the art achievments, recent developments, applications and future challenges of climbing and walking robots. These are presented in 24 chapters by authors throughtot the world The book serves as a reference especially for the researchers who are interested in mobile robots. It also is useful for industrial engineers and graduate students in advanced study

Design and development of a hominid robot with local control in its adaptable feet to enhance locomotion capabilities

With increasing mechanization of our daily lives, the expectations and demands in robotic systems increase in the general public and in scientists alike. In recent events such as the Deepwater Horizon''-accident or the nuclear disaster at Fukushima, mobile robotic systems were used, e.g., to support local task forces by gaining visual material to allow an analysis of the situation. Especially the Fukushima example shows that the robotic systems not only have to face a variety of different tasks during operation but also have to deal with different demands regarding the robot's mobility characteristics. To be able to cope with future requirements, it seems necessary to develop kinematically complex systems that feature several different operating modes. That is where this thesis comes in: A robotic system is developed, whose morphology is oriented on chimpanzees and which has the possibility due to its electro-mechanical structure and the degrees of freedom in its arms and legs to walk with different gaits in different postures. For the proposed robot, the chimpanzee was chosen as a model, since these animals show a multitude of different gaits in nature. A quadrupedal gait like crawl allows the robot to traverse safely and stable over rough terrain. A change into the humanoid, bipedal posture enables the robot to move in man-made environments. The structures, which are necessary to ensure an effective and stable locomotion in these two poses, e.g., the feet, are presented in more detail within the thesis. This includes the biological model and an abstraction to allow a technical implementation. In addition, biological spines are analyzed and the development of an active, artificial spine for the robotic system is described. These additional degrees of freedom can increase the robot's locomotion and manipulation capabilities and even allow to show movements, which are not possible without a spine. Unfortunately, the benefits of using an artificial spine in robotic systems are nowadays still neglected, due to the increased complexity of system design and control. To be able to control such a kinematically complex system, a multitude of sensors is installed within the robot's structures. By placing evaluation electronics close by, a local and decentralized preprocessing is realized. Due to this preprocessing is it possible to realize behaviors on the lowest level of robot control: in this thesis it is exemplarily demonstrated by a local controller in the robot's lower leg. In addition to the development and evaluation of robot's structures, the functionality of the overall system is analyzed in different environments. This includes the presentation of detailed data to show the advantages and disadvantages of the local controller. The robot can change its posture independently from a quadrupedal into a bipedal stance and the other way around without external assistance. Once the robot stands upright, it is to investigate to what extent the quadrupedal walking pattern and control structures (like the local controller) have to be modified to contribute to the bipedal walking as well