14,749 research outputs found
Bipedal Robotic Walking on Flat-Ground, Up-Slope and Rough Terrain with Human-Inspired Hybrid Zero Dynamics
The thesis shows how to achieve bipedal robotic walking on flat-ground, up-slope and rough terrain by using Human-Inspired control. We begin by considering human walking data and find outputs (or virtual constraints) that, when calculated from the human data, are described by simple functions of time (termed canonical walking functions). Formally, we construct a torque controller, through model inversion, that drives the outputs of the robot to the outputs of the human as represented by the canonical walking function; while these functions fit the human data well, they do not apriori guarantee robotic walking (due to do the physical differences between humans and robots). An optimization problem is presented that determines the best fit of the canonical walking function to the human data, while guaranteeing walking for a specific bipedal robot; in addition, constraints can be added that guarantee physically realizable walking. We consider a physical bipedal robot, AMBER, and considering the special property of the motors used in the robot, i.e., low leakage inductance, we approximate the motor model and use the formal controllers that satisfy the constraints and translate into an efficient voltage-based controller that can be directly implemented on AMBER. The end result is walking on flat-ground and up-slope which is not just human-like, but also amazingly robust. Having obtained walking on specific well defined terrains separately, rough terrain walking is achieved by dynamically changing the extended canonical walking functions (ECWF) that the robot outputs should track at every step. The state of the robot, after every non-stance foot strike, is actively sensed and the new CWF is constructed to ensure Hybrid Zero Dynamics is respected in the next step. Finally, the technique developed is tried on different terrains in simulation and in AMBER showing how the walking gait morphs depending on the terrain
Evolved embodied phase coordination enables robust quadruped robot locomotion
Overcoming robotics challenges in the real world requires resilient control
systems capable of handling a multitude of environments and unforeseen events.
Evolutionary optimization using simulations is a promising way to automatically
design such control systems, however, if the disparity between simulation and
the real world becomes too large, the optimization process may result in
dysfunctional real-world behaviors. In this paper, we address this challenge by
considering embodied phase coordination in the evolutionary optimization of a
quadruped robot controller based on central pattern generators. With this
method, leg phases, and indirectly also inter-leg coordination, are influenced
by sensor feedback.By comparing two very similar control systems we gain
insight into how the sensory feedback approach affects the evolved parameters
of the control system, and how the performances differs in simulation, in
transferal to the real world, and to different real-world environments. We show
that evolution enables the design of a control system with embodied phase
coordination which is more complex than previously seen approaches, and that
this system is capable of controlling a real-world multi-jointed quadruped
robot.The approach reduces the performance discrepancy between simulation and
the real world, and displays robustness towards new environments.Comment: 9 page
In silico case studies of compliant robots: AMARSI deliverable 3.3
In the deliverable 3.2 we presented how the morphological computing ap-
proach can significantly facilitate the control strategy in several scenarios,
e.g. quadruped locomotion, bipedal locomotion and reaching. In particular,
the Kitty experimental platform is an example of the use of morphological
computation to allow quadruped locomotion. In this deliverable we continue
with the simulation studies on the application of the different morphological
computation strategies to control a robotic system
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
Legged locomotion over irregular terrains: State of the art of human and robot performance
Legged robotic technologies have moved out of the lab to operate in real environments, characterized by a wide variety of unpredictable irregularities and disturbances, all this in close proximity with humans. Demonstrating the ability of current robots to move robustly and reliably in these conditions is becoming essential to prove their safe operation. Here, we report an in-depth literature review aimed at verifying the existence of common or agreed protocols and metrics to test the performance of legged system in realistic environments. We primarily focused on three types of robotic technologies, i.e., hexapods, quadrupeds and bipeds. We also included a comprehensive overview on human locomotion studies, being it often considered the gold standard for performance, and one of the most important sources of bioinspiration for legged machines. We discovered that very few papers have rigorously studied robotic locomotion under irregular terrain conditions. On the contrary, numerous studies have addressed this problem on human gait, being nonetheless of highly heterogeneous nature in terms of experimental design. This lack of agreed methodology makes it challenging for the community to properly assess, compare and predict the performance of existing legged systems in real environments. On the one hand, this work provides a library of methods, metrics and experimental protocols, with a critical analysis on the limitations of the current approaches and future promising directions. On the other hand, it demonstrates the existence of an important lack of benchmarks in the literature, and the possibility of bridging different disciplines, e.g., the human and robotic, towards the definition of standardized procedure that will boost not only the scientific development of better bioinspired solutions, but also their market uptake
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