Inducing dynamically stable walking in an underactuated prototype planar biped

• Published in: IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2004. Proceedings. ICRA '04. 2004 Vol. 4; pp. 4234 - 4239 Vol.4
• Main Authors: Westervelt, E.R., Buche, G., Grizzle, J.W.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: Piscataway NJ IEEE 2004
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Computer science; control theory; systems; Control system synthesis; Control systems; Control theory. Systems; Exact sciences and technology; Feedback; Legged locomotion; Motion analysis; Performance analysis; Prototypes; Rabbits; Robot control; Robotics; Robotics and automation; Stability analysis; Legged locomotion; Walking; Planar mechanism; Linkage mechanism; Underactuation; Feedback regulation; Control synthesis; Performance analysis; Bipedal walking; Modeling; Robotics
• ISBN: 9780780382329; 0780382323
• ISSN: 1050-4729; 2577-087X
• DOI: 10.1109/ROBOT.2004.1308942

This paper presents the experimental implementation and validation of a framework for the systematic design, analysis, and performance enhancement of controllers that induce stable walking in N-link underactuated planar biped robots. Controllers designed via this framework act by enforcing virtual constraints - holonomic constraints imposed via feedback - on the robot's configuration. The stability properties of the resulting walking motions may be easily analyzed in terms of a two-dimensional sub-dynamic of the full walking model. The experimental validation is performed on RABBIT, a 5-link prototype constructed by the French project Commande de Robots a Pattes of the CNRS-GdR Automatique.