BIPED

ROBOTS

Dr. Ashish Dutta

Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, IIT KANPUR

INDIA
Locomotion
 Locomotion: Moving from one point to another

 Early robots were mainly stationary arms

 Need to increase the work space of the arms by

mounting the arms on mobile robots or legs.

 First attempts were made on wheeled robots then

legs
WHEELED ROBOTS
 Early mobile robots were all wheeled robots

 Wheeled robots do not need balancing

 Wheels require less energy for motion

 Wheeled robots may be ‘holonomic’ or

‘nonholonomic’
Types of mobile robots
 Non-holonomic systems : all the degrees of freedom are
not independent. E.g. cars that can move and turn only at
a fixed angle.

 Holonomic systems: all the degrees of freedom are

independent, e.g. cars that can move in any direction ,even
sideways.
Macnum wheels
Motion in any direction
Wheels
wheels
Biology prefers legs
 All biological entities have either legs, wings, tails , etc.
for locomotion

 Legs require more energy but are multi functional

 Recent interest in legged locomotion : technically

feasible
Advantages of legs
 Walk over obstacles

 Less footprint

 Body can be maintained at the same height

 Can perform different functions : climbing stairs,

sitting down, etc.
Balance : Static or Dynamic
A typical control system:
 Finite state machine:
 Small number of states (2-10)
 Types of transitions:
 Timed – after fixed amount of time.
 Sensor-based – after certain event has happened.

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A typical control system:
 Example FSM (running for one-legged robot):

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First Approach:
 [Raibert83], MIT - 3D one-legged hopping robot.
 The control system is divided into three independent
parts:
 Control of the forward speed.
 Control of the body attitude.
 Control of the hopping height.

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One-legged hopper

 4 DOF:
 1 for length of the leg.
 3 for the joint.
 Only 2 DOF in 2D.
 Modeled as spring and inverted
pendulum.

 Video

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 Animation of Dynamic Legged
Locomotion

 5 states.
 Can be simplified to:
 Support phase.
 Flight phase.
 All the transitions are
event-driven.

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 Animation of Dynamic Legged
Locomotion

 Controlling forward velocity: we can only influence step length, i.e.

the next footstep.
 Neutral point – the velocity is preserved.
 Step before the neutral point – increased velocity. (after–decreased).
 xfh – forward displacement of the foot.
 ts – duration of the support period.
 q – the angle of the leg at touchdown.
 kx’ – gain, determined experimentally.

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Animation of Dynamic Legged
Locomotion

 Controlling body attitude:

 Estimate the torque at the hip, given:
 Desired angle – fd.
 Current angle – f.
 Use PD control:
 t – hip torque.
 kf , bf – gains.

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Animation of Dynamic Legged
Locomotion

 Controlling hopping height:

 Depends on the force exerted by the leg.
 The leg is modeled as spring with adjustable
rest length (Ld).
 Ld – rest length – can be modified to
control the hop height.
 kL, bL – gains, again experimentally.

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Number of legs and its position
Shape of legs
Relative length of legs
Balancing
Tail based for balancing
GAIT : static balance Vs dynamic balance

 Pattern of foot placement

 Creep gait

Duty factor and phase for time T

Dynamic Gait