High-Resolution Indirect Feet–Ground Interaction Measurement for Hydraulic-Legged Robots

Feet-ground interactions influence the legged robot's stability. In this paper, a high-resolution indirect force measurement for hydraulic-legged robots is presented. The use of pressure transducers placed at one or both chambers of the robot's double-effect hydraulic actuators is investigated, and conclusions are drawn regarding their capability for indirectly measuring the contact forces between the feet and the ground. Because of the nonlinear dynamic properties of hydraulic cylinders, friction modeling is essential to determine at all times the true forces of each foot against the soil. The test case is called ROBOCLIMBER, which is a bulky quadruped climbing and walking machine able to carry heavy-duty drilling equipment for landslide consolidation and monitoring works. Sensor calibration and signal filtering requirements are also taken into consideration. To end, the overall proposed approach to measure feet-ground interactions is experimentally evaluated.Feet-ground interactions influence the legged robot's stability. In this paper, a high-resolution indirect force measurement for hydraulic-legged robots is presented. The use of pressure transducers placed at one or both chambers of the robot's double-effect hydraulic actuators is investigated, and conclusions are drawn regarding their capability for indirectly measuring the contact forces between the feet and the ground. Because of the nonlinear dynamic properties of hydraulic cylinders, friction modeling is essential to determine at all times the true forces of each foot against the soil. The test case is called ROBOCLIMBER, which is a bulky quadruped climbing and walking machine able to carry heavy-duty drilling equipment for landslide consolidation and monitoring works. Sensor calibration and signal filtering requirements are also taken into consideration. To end, the overall proposed approach to measure feet-ground interactions is experimentally evaluated

High-Resolution Indirect Feet–Ground Interaction Measurement for Hydraulic-Legged Robots

Feet–ground interactions influence the legged robot’s stability. In this paper, a high-resolution indirect force measurement for hydraulic-legged robots is presented. The use of pressure transducers placed at one or both chambers of the robot’s double-effect hydraulic actuators is investigated, and conclusions are drawn regarding their capability for indirectly measuring the contact forces between the feet and the ground. Because of the nonlinear dynamic properties of hydraulic cylinders, friction modeling is essential to determine at all times the true forces of each foot against the soil. The test case is called ROBOCLIMBER, which is a bulky quadruped climbing and walking machine able to carry heavy-duty drilling equipment for landslide consolidation and monitoring works. Sensor calibration and signal filtering requirements are also taken into consideration. To end, the overall proposed approach to measure feet–ground interactions is experimentally evaluated.This work was supported in part by Comunidad de Madrid under Grant RoboCity2030 S- 0505/DPI/0176.The ROBOCLIMBER project was funded by the European Commission under Contract G1ST-CT-2002-50160.Peer reviewe

Survey of Visual and Force/Tactile Control of Robots for Physical Interaction in Spain

Sensors provide robotic systems with the information required to perceive the changes that happen in unstructured environments and modify their actions accordingly. The robotic controllers which process and analyze this sensory information are usually based on three types of sensors (visual, force/torque and tactile) which identify the most widespread robotic control strategies: visual servoing control, force control and tactile control. This paper presents a detailed review on the sensor architectures, algorithmic techniques and applications which have been developed by Spanish researchers in order to implement these mono-sensor and multi-sensor controllers which combine several sensors