Midair Posture Detection and Landing Control of a Robot with Multiarticulated Twin Legs.

Abstract

In the previous papers, the authors investigated a robot cat which could restore its attitude during free fall by twisting and controlling the body. Then the principle of the twisting motion was elucidated : the robot cat could rotate its body by 180 degrees' within 0. 6 seconds when released from an upside-down position. In this paper, 3D midair attitude detection and landing control of a newly developed robot with multiarticulated twin legs were studied. A postural detection method using the Euler angle caused by the 3D attitude angles detected by three rate gyrosensors mounted on the robot was proposed, and a landing control method for the twin legs using 4 pairs of antagonists composed of artificial rubber muscles was described. An experiment conducted with this robot shows that the attitude of the robot thrown in an arbitrary direction could be detected and the legs could be successfully controlled to turn towards the ground for landing.