124 research outputs found
Keep Rollin' - Whole-Body Motion Control and Planning for Wheeled Quadrupedal Robots
We show dynamic locomotion strategies for wheeled quadrupedal robots, which
combine the advantages of both walking and driving. The developed optimization
framework tightly integrates the additional degrees of freedom introduced by
the wheels. Our approach relies on a zero-moment point based motion
optimization which continuously updates reference trajectories. The reference
motions are tracked by a hierarchical whole-body controller which computes
optimal generalized accelerations and contact forces by solving a sequence of
prioritized tasks including the nonholonomic rolling constraints. Our approach
has been tested on ANYmal, a quadrupedal robot that is fully torque-controlled
including the non-steerable wheels attached to its legs. We conducted
experiments on flat and inclined terrains as well as over steps, whereby we
show that integrating the wheels into the motion control and planning framework
results in intuitive motion trajectories, which enable more robust and dynamic
locomotion compared to other wheeled-legged robots. Moreover, with a speed of 4
m/s and a reduction of the cost of transport by 83 % we prove the superiority
of wheeled-legged robots compared to their legged counterparts.Comment: IEEE Robotics and Automation Letter
Whole-Body MPC for a Dynamically Stable Mobile Manipulator
Autonomous mobile manipulation offers a dual advantage of mobility provided
by a mobile platform and dexterity afforded by the manipulator. In this paper,
we present a whole-body optimal control framework to jointly solve the problems
of manipulation, balancing and interaction as one optimization problem for an
inherently unstable robot. The optimization is performed using a Model
Predictive Control (MPC) approach; the optimal control problem is transcribed
at the end-effector space, treating the position and orientation tasks in the
MPC planner, and skillfully planning for end-effector contact forces. The
proposed formulation evaluates how the control decisions aimed at end-effector
tracking and environment interaction will affect the balance of the system in
the future. We showcase the advantages of the proposed MPC approach on the
example of a ball-balancing robot with a robotic manipulator and validate our
controller in hardware experiments for tasks such as end-effector pose tracking
and door opening
State Estimation for a Humanoid Robot
This paper introduces a framework for state estimation on a humanoid robot
platform using only common proprioceptive sensors and knowledge of leg
kinematics. The presented approach extends that detailed in [1] on a quadruped
platform by incorporating the rotational constraints imposed by the humanoid's
flat feet. As in previous work, the proposed Extended Kalman Filter (EKF)
accommodates contact switching and makes no assumptions about gait or terrain,
making it applicable on any humanoid platform for use in any task. The filter
employs a sensor-based prediction model which uses inertial data from an IMU
and corrects for integrated error using a kinematics-based measurement model
which relies on joint encoders and a kinematic model to determine the relative
position and orientation of the feet. A nonlinear observability analysis is
performed on both the original and updated filters and it is concluded that the
new filter significantly simplifies singular cases and improves the
observability characteristics of the system. Results on simulated walking and
squatting datasets demonstrate the performance gain of the flat-foot filter as
well as confirm the results of the presented observability analysis.Comment: IROS 2014 Submission, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on
Intelligent Robots and Systems (2014) 952-95
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