Experimental Validation of a Framework for the Design of Controllers that Induce Stable Walking in Planar Bipeds

Abstract

In this paper we present the experimental 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, which create an attracting two-dimensional invariant set in the full walking model’s state space. Stability properties of resulting walking motions are easily analyzed in terms of a two-dimensional subdynamic of the full walking model. A practical introduction to and interpretation of the framework is given. In addition, in this paper we develop the ability to regulate the average walking rate of the biped to a continuum of values by modification of within-stride and stride-boundary characteristics, such as step length.