A Gait Generation for an Unlocked Joint Failure of the Quadruped Robot with Balance Weight

A Gait Generation for an Unlocked Joint Failure of the

Quadruped Robot with Balance Weight

C.H. Cho, B.C. Min, and

D.H. Kim

Department of Electronic Engineering, Kyung Hee University,

Seocheon-dong, Giheung-Gu, Yongin-Si, 449-701, Korea

{movielove61,minbc,donghani}@khu.ac.kr

Abstract. Assurance of a stability margin for a stabilized gait is the most

important issue for the quadruped robot. Although various studies for dynamic

stability of the quadruped robot have been studied, problems in which one of

the legs has an unlocked joint failure haven’t been relatively studied so far. In

this paper, assurance of stability margin for the unlocked joint failure of the

quadruped robot is suggested by using gait stabilization and a control method of

the moment of inertia. Then, efficiency of BW (balance weight) will be

experimentally verified by comparing the two types of robot; one is equipped

with the BW, the other is not equipped with BW.

Keywords: quadruped robot, balance weight, joint failure.

1 Introduction

Although legged robots have more complex kinematic structure and less energy efficiency than wheel-based robot, legged robots have been developed a lot because of the high locomotion and environmental adaptability on uneven terrain among the multi-legged robots field. The studies on the quadruped robot are more dynamically stable and efficient than other robot.

Most studies in the quadruped robot focused on the stability or the gait generation. For example, Kumar[1] suggested force distribution method for walking. Hiroshi[2] experimented the quadruped robot on unknown irregular terrain with automatic posture control. Also, Fukuoka[3] presented adaptive dynamic walking on irregular terrain using a neural system model. Berkemeier[4] and Takao[5] suggested running method of a quadruped robot.

On the other hand, quadruped robot which has unexpected problems with one of the four leg has less been studied so far. In case of the locked joint failure, Yang[6] proposed stabilized gait generation method for the locked joint failure that one of the four legs still had the ability to support the body, but didn’t have any ability to move the body. For the unlocked joint failure, Shigoe[7] suggested kick-and-swing movement, active shock absorbing method and minimum energy gait planning.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a method to control the quadruped robot by using a balance weight (BW) even if one of the four legs loses all the abilities such as supporting or moving the body.

J.-H. Kim et al. (Eds.): FIRA 2009, LNCS 5744, pp. 251–261, 2009.

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2009