A control strategy for a robot with one articulated leg hopping on irregular terrain

摘要

This paper reports on an improvement of an earlier developed control algorithm for a one-legged hopping robot. The algorithm, which allows the robot to hop on irregular terrain, consists of two separate parts. By steering the motion of the leg the first part controls a number of objective locomotion parameters, being forward velocity during flight, hopping height, step length and stepping height. These objective parameters can be changed from one hop to another. This part of the algorithm has been extensively discussed in [3]. The second part of the algorithm controls the motion of the upper body, by making an adequate choice of the angular momentum around the COG during the flight phase and by choosing a well determined value of the stance time. This paper specifically focuses on the control of the upper body motion. Although the algorithm allows for non-steady state motion, for simplicity reasons the control of the upper body will first be tested on a number of consecutive steady state hops. 1.