Adaptive gait pattern control of a quadruped locomotion robot

The authors have proposed a control system of a quadruped locomotion robot by using nonlinear oscillators. It is composed of a leg motion controller and a gait pattern controller. The leg motion controller drives the actuators of the legs by using local feedback control. The gait pattern controller involves nonlinear oscillators with mutual interactions. In the paper, capability of adaptation of the proposed control system to variance of the environment is verified through numerical simulations and hardware experiments. With the input signals from the touch sensors at the tips of the legs, the nonlinear oscillators tune the phase differences among them through mutual entertainments. As a result, a gait pattern corresponding to the states of the system or to the properties of the environment emerges. The robot changes its gait pattern adaptively to variance of the environment and establishes a stable locomotion while suppressing the energy consumption.

[1]  N. A. Bernshteĭn.  The co-ordination and regulation of movements , 1967 .

[2]  J. Oxford,et al.  Oxford , 1968, Leaving The Arena.

[3]  Rodney A. Brooks,et al.  A Robust Layered Control Syste For A Mobile Robot , 2022 .

[4]  Rodney A. Brooks,et al.  A Robot that Walks; Emergent Behaviors from a Carefully Evolved Network , 1989, Neural Computation.

[5]  Rodney A. Brooks,et al.  A robot that walks; emergent behaviors from a carefully evolved network , 1989, Proceedings, 1989 International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[6]  Jeffrey Dean,et al.  Coordination in a six-legged walking system. Simple solutions to complex problems by exploitation of physical properties. , 1996 .

[7]  Hiroshi Kimura,et al.  Dynamic walking and running of the quadruped using neural oscillator , 1998, Proceedings. 1998 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. Innovations in Theory, Practice and Applications (Cat. No.98CH36190).

[8]  Andy Ruina,et al.  Stability and Chaos in Passive-Dynamic Locomotion , 1999 .

[9]  T. Mita,et al.  Proposal of a variable constraint control for SMS with application to a running and jumping quadruped , 1999, IEEE SMC'99 Conference Proceedings. 1999 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (Cat. No.99CH37028).

[10]  Ralph Etienne-Cummings,et al.  Toward biomorphic control using custom aVLSI CPG chips , 2000, Proceedings 2000 ICRA. Millennium Conference. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. Symposia Proceedings (Cat. No.00CH37065).