Running synthesis and control for monopods and bipeds with articulated

Bibliography: p. 179-20

Simulation and Control of Running Models

This work focuses on the locomotion of one-legged robots, with focus on approaches that stabilize passive limit cycles. Locomotion based on the socalled passive gaits promises to greatly reduce the actuation effort required for legged robots to move. In this work, the passive gaits of robots of varying complexity are characterized and stabilizing controllers are reviewed from the literature and newly formulated. The robots are modelled as hybrid dynamical systems and numerically simulated, thereby allowing to validate the proposed control strategies. Firstly, the vertical control through energy regulation of a one-dimensional hopper is considered. Secondly, the SLIP model is reviewed and then extended to the “pitchingSLIP”, with the aim of characterizing its passive gaits with somersaults. Two controllers based on energy and angular momentum regulation are then formulated to stabilize passive gaits with somersaults, making the control effort converge to zero. A further extension of the SLIP template, denominated “bodySLIP”, is then used to test the control approach on a more realistic model. The controllers shall be later extended to more complex cases, in which the somersaults are not necessarily present in the passive gaits. Thirdly, the locomotion of a one-legged robot with a body link is studied. Raibert’s control approach based on the foot placement algorithm is reviewed and compared to the non-dissipative touchdown controller of Hyon and Emura. The latter is then extended to be used with continuous torque profiles and to perform velocity tracking. Moreover, damping is added to the joints in order to study its effect on the controller, which was then modified to achieve stable running even in such conditions. The results obtained shall lay the foundations for a later test on hardware on DLR’s quadruped Bert

An Overview on Principles for Energy Efficient Robot Locomotion

Despite enhancements in the development of robotic systems, the energy economy of today's robots lags far behind that of biological systems. This is in particular critical for untethered legged robot locomotion. To elucidate the current stage of energy efficiency in legged robotic systems, this paper provides an overview on recent advancements in development of such platforms. The covered different perspectives include actuation, leg structure, control and locomotion principles. We review various robotic actuators exploiting compliance in series and in parallel with the drive-train to permit energy recycling during locomotion. We discuss the importance of limb segmentation under efficiency aspects and with respect to design, dynamics analysis and control of legged robots. This paper also reviews a number of control approaches allowing for energy efficient locomotion of robots by exploiting the natural dynamics of the system, and by utilizing optimal control approaches targeting locomotion expenditure. To this end, a set of locomotion principles elaborating on models for energetics, dynamics, and of the systems is studied

Dynamic Walking: Toward Agile and Efficient Bipedal Robots

Dynamic walking on bipedal robots has evolved from an idea in science fiction to a practical reality. This is due to continued progress in three key areas: a mathematical understanding of locomotion, the computational ability to encode this mathematics through optimization, and the hardware capable of realizing this understanding in practice. In this context, this review article outlines the end-to-end process of methods which have proven effective in the literature for achieving dynamic walking on bipedal robots. We begin by introducing mathematical models of locomotion, from reduced order models that capture essential walking behaviors to hybrid dynamical systems that encode the full order continuous dynamics along with discrete footstrike dynamics. These models form the basis for gait generation via (nonlinear) optimization problems. Finally, models and their generated gaits merge in the context of real-time control, wherein walking behaviors are translated to hardware. The concepts presented are illustrated throughout in simulation, and experimental instantiation on multiple walking platforms are highlighted to demonstrate the ability to realize dynamic walking on bipedal robots that is agile and efficient

Virtual Constraints and Hybrid Zero Dynamics for Realizing Underactuated Bipedal Locomotion

Underactuation is ubiquitous in human locomotion and should be ubiquitous in bipedal robotic locomotion as well. This chapter presents a coherent theory for the design of feedback controllers that achieve stable walking gaits in underactuated bipedal robots. Two fundamental tools are introduced, virtual constraints and hybrid zero dynamics. Virtual constraints are relations on the state variables of a mechanical model that are imposed through a time-invariant feedback controller. One of their roles is to synchronize the robot's joints to an internal gait phasing variable. A second role is to induce a low dimensional system, the zero dynamics, that captures the underactuated aspects of a robot's model, without any approximations. To enhance intuition, the relation between physical constraints and virtual constraints is first established. From here, the hybrid zero dynamics of an underactuated bipedal model is developed, and its fundamental role in the design of asymptotically stable walking motions is established. The chapter includes numerous references to robots on which the highlighted techniques have been implemented.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures, bookchapte

Dimension Reduction Near Periodic Orbits of Hybrid Systems

When the Poincar\'{e} map associated with a periodic orbit of a hybrid dynamical system has constant-rank iterates, we demonstrate the existence of a constant-dimensional invariant subsystem near the orbit which attracts all nearby trajectories in finite time. This result shows that the long-term behavior of a hybrid model with a large number of degrees-of-freedom may be governed by a low-dimensional smooth dynamical system. The appearance of such simplified models enables the translation of analytical tools from smooth systems-such as Floquet theory-to the hybrid setting and provides a bridge between the efforts of biologists and engineers studying legged locomotion.Comment: Full version of conference paper appearing in IEEE CDC/ECC 201

Modular Hopping and Running via Parallel Composition

Though multi-functional robot hardware has been created, the complexity in its functionality has been constrained by a lack of algorithms that appropriately manage flexible and autonomous reconfiguration of interconnections to physical and behavioral components. Raibert pioneered a paradigm for the synthesis of planar hopping using a composition of ``parts\u27\u27: controlled vertical hopping, controlled forward speed, and controlled body attitude. Such reduced degree-of-freedom compositions also seem to appear in running animals across several orders of magnitude of scale. Dynamical systems theory can offer a formal representation of such reductions in terms of ``anchored templates,\u27\u27 respecting which Raibert\u27s empirical synthesis (and the animals\u27 empirical performance) can be posed as a parallel composition. However, the orthodox notion (attracting invariant submanifold with restriction dynamics conjugate to a template system) has only been formally synthesized in a few isolated instances in engineering (juggling, brachiating, hexapedal running robots, etc.) and formally observed in biology only in similarly limited contexts. In order to bring Raibert\u27s 1980\u27s work into the 21st century and out of the laboratory, we design a new family of one-, two-, and four-legged robots with high power density, transparency, and control bandwidth. On these platforms, we demonstrate a growing collection of $\{$body, behavior$\}$ pairs that successfully embody dynamical running / hopping ``gaits\u27\u27 specified using compositions of a few templates, with few parameters and a great deal of empirical robustness. We aim for and report substantial advances toward a formal notion of parallel composition---embodied behaviors that are correct by design even in the presence of nefarious coupling and perturbation---using a new analytical tool (hybrid dynamical averaging). With ideas of verifiable behavioral modularity and a firm understanding of the hardware tools required to implement them, we are closer to identifying the components required to flexibly program the exchange of work between machines and their environment. Knowing how to combine and sequence stable basins to solve arbitrarily complex tasks will result in improved foundations for robotics as it goes from ad-hoc practice to science (with predictive theories) in the next few decades