An empirical comparison of a free dynamics simulator “Open Dynamics Engine” with TITAN-VIII hardware torque/power measurements

Abstract

A free rigid body dynamics simulator “Open Dynamics Engine” is empirically compared with the results of hardware measurements in joint torque/power dimensions for a quadruped robot “TITAN-VIII”. We developed the quadruped robot model on the simulator and compared simulated joint torques and powers with hardware experiments during walking which takes four different walking postures. The results suggest that the direct acquisitions of simulated joint torques include a large latency in our application but this defect is avoidable by using joint force information. Careful parameter settings and tunings permit the simulator to match hardware experimental data with sufficient accuracy.