Steering a quadruped robot: Simulation and experimental results

Abstract

This article presents a solution for the steering problem of a quadruped robot such that it follows a desired path specified by a set of waypoints. The robot was assembled using the popular Robotis Bioloid Comprehensive Kit and it uses 3 servomotors in each leg. Steering is achieved by using an extra servomotor to turn the robot frontal axis which supports its frontal legs. The proposed path following algorithm firstly selects a target point according to the current robot position and the two waypoints of interest at the time. Then the angle of the robot frontal axis is adjusted to point to this target point. As the robot moves, a new target point is selected. Simulation and experimental results are presented and show that the proposed path following algorithm can successfully steer the robot.