Exploring Passive Dynamics in Legged Locomotion

A common observation among legged animals is that they move their limbs differently as they change their speed. The observed distinct patterns of limb movement are usually referred to as different gaits. Experiments with humans and mammals have shown that switching between different gaits as locomotion speed changes, enables energetically more economical locomotion. However, it still remains unclear why animals with very different morphologies use similar gaits, where these gaits come from, and how they are related. This dissertation approaches these questions by exploring the natural passive dynamic motions of a range of simplified mechanical models of legged locomotion. Recent research has shown that a simple bipedal model with compliant legs and a single set of parameters can match ground reaction forces of both human walking and running. As first contribution of this dissertation, this concept is extended to quadrupeds. A unified model is developed to reproduce many quadrupedal gaits by only varying the initial states of a motion. In addition, the model parameters are optimized to match the experimental data of real horses, as measured by an instrumented treadmill. It is shown that the proposed model is able to not only create similar kinematic motion trajectories, but can also explain the ground reaction forces of real horses moving with different gaits. In order to reveal the mechanical contribution to gaits, the simplistic bipedal and quadrupedal models are then augmented to have passive swing leg motions by including torsional springs at the hip joints. Through a numerical continuation of periodic motions, this work shows that a wide range of gaits emerges from a simple bouncing-in-place motion starting with different footfall patterns. For both, bipedal and quadrupedal models, these gaits arise along one-dimensional manifolds of solutions with varying total energy. Through breaking temporal and spatial symmetries of the periodic motions, these manifolds bifurcate into distinct branches with various footfall sequences. That is, passive gaits are obtained as different oscillatory motions of a single mechanical system with a single set of parameters. By reproducing a variety of gaits as a manifestation of the passive dynamics of unified models, this work provides insights into the underlying dynamics of legged locomotion and may help design of more economical controllers for legged machines.PHDMechanical EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/147585/1/ganzheny_1.pd

Numerical bifurcation analysis of the asymmetric spring-mass model

In this thesis, an approach is presented that is based on the calculation of bifurcations in the spring-mass model. The new approach consists of the transformation of the series of initial value problems on different intervals into a single boundary value problem. Using this technique, discontinuities can be avoided and sophisticated numerical methods for studying parameterized nonlinear boundary value problems can be applied. Thus, appropriate extended systems are used to compute transcritical and period-doubling bifurcation points as well as turning points. We show that the resulting boundary value problems can be solved by the simple shooting method with sufficient accuracy, making the application of the more extensive multiple shooting superfluous. The proposed approach is fast, robust to numerical perturbations and allows to determine highly unstable periodic solutions of the original problem. Asymmetric leg function is often an undesired side-effect in artificial legged systems and may reflect functional deficits or variations in the mechanical construction. It can also be found in legged locomotion in humans and animals, for example after an accident or in specific gait patterns. So far, it is not clear to what extent differences in the leg function of contralateral limbs can be tolerated during walking or running. Here, we address this issue using the spring-mass model for simulating walking and running with compliant legs. With the help of the original realization of the model and the boundary value problem approach, we show that considerable differences between contralateral legs can be tolerated and may even provide advantages to the robustness of the system dynamics. A better understanding of the mechanisms and potential benefits of asymmetric leg operation may help to guide the development of artificial limbs or the design novel therapeutic concepts and rehabilitation strategies

Aspects of Invariant Manifold Theory and Applications

Recent years have seen a surge of interest in "data-driven" approaches to determine the equations governing complex systems. Yet in spite of modern computing advances, the high dimensionality of many systems --- such as those occurring in biology and robotics --- renders direct machine learning approaches infeasible. This dissertation develops tools for the experimental study of complex systems, based on mathematical concepts from dynamical systems theory. Our approach uses the fact that parsimonious assumptions often lead to strong insights from dynamical systems theory; such insights can be leveraged in learning algorithms to mitigate the “curse of dimensionality” and make these algorithms practical. Our first contribution concerns nonlinear oscillators. Oscillators are ubiquitous in nature, and usually associated with the existence of an "asymptotic phase" which governs the long-term dynamics of the oscillator. We show that asymptotic phase can be expressed as a line integral with respect to a uniquely defined closed differential 1-form, and provide an algorithm for estimating this "ToF" from observational data. Unlike all previously available data-driven phase estimation methods, our algorithm can: (i) use observations that are much shorter than a cycle; (ii) recover phase within the entire region for which data convergent to the limit cycle is available; (iii) recover the phase response curves (PRC-s) that govern weak oscillator coupling; (iv) show isochron curvature, and recover nonlinear features of isochron geometry. Our method may find application wherever models of oscillator dynamics need to be constructed from measured or simulated time-series. Our next contribution concerns locomotion systems which are dominated by viscous friction in the sense that without power expenditure they quickly come to a standstill. From geometric mechanics, it is known that in the ``Stokesian'' (viscous; zero Reynolds number) limit, the motion is governed by a reduced order "connection'' model that describes how body shape change produces motion for the body frame with respect to the world. In the "perturbed Stokes regime'' where inertial forces are still dominated by viscosity, but are not negligible (low Reynolds number), we show that motion is still governed by a functional relationship between shape velocity and body velocity, but this function is no longer connection-like. We derive this model using results from noncompact NHIM theory in a singular perturbation framework. Using a normal form derived from theoretical properties of this reduced-order model, we develop an algorithm that estimates an approximation to the dynamics near a cyclic body shape change (a "gait") directly from observational data of shape and body motion. Our algorithm has applications to the study of optimality of animal gaits, and to hardware-in-the-loop optimization to produce gaits for robots. Finally, we make fundamental contributions to NHIM theory: we prove that the global stable foliation of a NHIM is a $C^0$ disk bundle, and we prove that the dynamics restricted to the stable manifold of a compact inflowing NHIM are globally topologically conjugate to the linearized transverse dynamics at the NHIM restricted to the stable vector bundle. We also give conditions ensuring $C^k$ versions of our results, and we illustrate the theory by giving applications to geometric singular perturbation theory in the case of an attracting critical manifold: we show that the domain of the Fenichel Normal Form can be extended to the entire global stable manifold, and under additional nonresonance assumptions we derive a smooth global linear normal form.PHDElectrical and Computer EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/147642/1/kvalheim_1.pd

Reduced Order Model Inspired Robotic Bipedal Walking: A Step-to-step Dynamics Approximation based Approach

Controlling bipedal robotic walking is a challenging task. The dynamics is hybrid, nonlinear, high-dimensional, and typically underactuated. Complex physical constraints have to be satisfied in the walking generation. The stability in terms of not-falling is also hard to be encoded in the walking synthesis. Canonical approaches for enabling robotic walking typically rely on large-scale trajectory optimizations for generating optimal periodic behaviors on the full-dimensional model of the system; then the stabilities of the controlled behaviors are analyzed through the numerically derived Poincaré maps. This full-dimensional periodic behavior based synthesis, despite being theoretically rigorous, suffers from several disadvantages. The trajectory optimization problem is computationally challenging to solve. Non-trivial expert-tuning is required on the cost, constraints, and initial conditions to avoid infeasibilities and local optimality. It is cumbersome for realizing non-periodical behaviors, and the synthesized walking can be sensitive to model uncertainties. In this thesis, we propose an alternative approach of walking synthesis that is based on reduced order modeling and dynamics approximation. We formulate a discrete step-to-step (S2S) dynamics of walking, where the step size is treated as the control input to stabilize the pre-impact horizontal center of mass (COM) state of the robot. Stepping planning thus is converted into a feedback control problem. To effectively and efficiently solve this feedback stepping planning problem, an underactuated Hybrid Linear Inverted Pendulum (H-LIP) model is proposed to approximate the dynamics of underactuated bipedal walking; the linear S2S dynamics of the H-LIP then approximates the robot S2S dynamics. The H-LIP based stepping controller is hence utilized to plan the desired step sizes on the robot to control its pre-impact horizontal COM state. Stable walking behaviors are consequently generating by realizing the desired step size in the output construction and stabilizing the output via optimization-based controllers. We evaluate this approach successfully on several bipedal walking systems with an increase in the system complexity: a planar five-linkage walker AMBER, an actuated version of the Spring Loaded Inverted Pendulum (aSLIP) in both 2D and 3D, and finally the 3D underactuated robot Cassie. The generated dynamic walking behaviors on these systems are shown to be highly versatile and robust. Furthermore, we show that this approach can be effectively extended to realizing more complex walking tasks such as global trajectory tracking and walking on rough terrain.</p

Vibration, Control and Stability of Dynamical Systems

From Preface: This is the fourteenth time when the conference “Dynamical Systems: Theory and Applications” gathers a numerous group of outstanding scientists and engineers, who deal with widely understood problems of theoretical and applied dynamics. Organization of the conference would not have been possible without a great effort of the staff of the Department of Automation, Biomechanics and Mechatronics. The patronage over the conference has been taken by the Committee of Mechanics of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Poland. It is a great pleasure that our invitation has been accepted by recording in the history of our conference number of people, including good colleagues and friends as well as a large group of researchers and scientists, who decided to participate in the conference for the first time. With proud and satisfaction we welcomed over 180 persons from 31 countries all over the world. They decided to share the results of their research and many years experiences in a discipline of dynamical systems by submitting many very interesting papers. This year, the DSTA Conference Proceedings were split into three volumes entitled “Dynamical Systems” with respective subtitles: Vibration, Control and Stability of Dynamical Systems; Mathematical and Numerical Aspects of Dynamical System Analysis and Engineering Dynamics and Life Sciences. Additionally, there will be also published two volumes of Springer Proceedings in Mathematics and Statistics entitled “Dynamical Systems in Theoretical Perspective” and “Dynamical Systems in Applications”

2010 program of study : swirling and swimming in turbulence

Swirling and Swimming in Turbulence was the theme at the 2010 GFD Program. Professors Glenn Flierl (M.I.T.), Antonello Provenzale (ISAC-CNR, Turin) and Jean-Luc Thiffeault (University of Wisconsin) were the principal lecturers. Together they navigated an elegant path through topics ranging from mixing protocols and efficiencies to ecological strategies, schooling and genetic development. The first ten chapters of this volume document these lectures, each prepared by pairs of this summer’s GFD fellows. Following on are the written reports of the fellows’ own research projects.Funding was provided by the Office of Naval Research under Contract No. N000-14-09-10844 and the National Science Foundation through Grant No. OCE 082463

Spiral pinballs, cardiac tissue and deforming capacitors.

‘Spiral pinballs’ are resonantly drifting spiral waves in excitable media that reflect from boundaries. Instead of reflecting at an angle equal to the one at which they approach the boundary—like a ray of light reflecting from a mirror—they reflect in a preferred direction. This invites comparison with a number of other complex systems that behave as nonspecular billiards, including bouncing droplets on a vibrated bath, swimming microorganisms and segments of chemical waves. In the first part of this thesis, we study the trajectories of spiral pinball reflections. A catalogue of interesting behaviours is discovered in both the small- and large-core rotation regimes and the long-term billiard dynamics is briefly considered. By using an asymptotic theory, we examine the reflection process in detail and thereby explain many of the observed phenomena. The second part of this thesis concerns itself with modelling spiral wave activity in a deforming medium. Our motivation stems from cardiac tissue, in which spiral waves and mechanical deformation are reciprocally coupled. We describe a simple modelling approach for this system and discuss its implementation. Various different results are presented using this model. Finally we consider a problem from the engineering world. Dielectric elastomers are flexible capacitors that undergo nonlinear elastic deformations in response to forces arising from electric surface charges. We propose a novel modelling approach that decomposes these forces into a compressive stress and a tangential shear. The tangential component corresponds to a fringing effect that is usually considered to be negligible. Via numerical simulations and comparison with experimental data we show that it nonetheless has an important role to play in selecting the deformed shapes that these systems adopt. In some cases, we are able to compute multiple equilibrium configurations and it is shown that doing so is necessary to obtain the most physically relevant states