Universal balancing controller for robust lateral stabilization of bipedal robots in dynamic, unstable environments

Abstract

This paper presents a novel universal balancing controller that successfully stabilizes a planar bipedal robot in dynamic, unstable environments like seesaw and bongoboards, and also in static environments like curved and flat floors. These different dynamic systems have state spaces with different dimensions, and hence instead of using full state feedback, the universal controller is derived as a single output feedback controller that stabilizes them. This paper analyzes the robustness of the derived universal controller to disturbances and parameter uncertainties, and demonstrates its universality and superiority to similarly derived LQR and H <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">∞</sub> controllers. This paper also presents nonlinear simulation results of the universal controller successfully stabilizing a family of bongoboard, curved floor, seesaw, tilting and rocking floor models.