Controlling Dynamic Stability and Active Compliance to Improve Quadrupedal Walking

This paper aims to solve two main disadvantages featuring walking robots: the lack of reacting capabilities from external disturbances, and the very slow walking motion. Both problems are reduced here by combining, (1) an active compliance controller, which helps the robot react to disturbances, and (2) a dynamic energy stability margin that quantifies the impact energy that a robot can withstand. This dynamic energy stability margin is used as a new term in the active compliance equation to compensate for unstable motions. As a result, the combined controller helps the robot achieve faster and more stable compliant motions than conventional controllers. Experiments performed on the SILO4 quadruped robot show a relevant improvement on the walking gait.

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