Development of a Bipedal Hopping Robot With Morphable Inertial Tail for Agile Locomotion

An, Jiajun; Chung, T. Y.; Lo, Chun Ho David; Ma, Carlos; Chu, Xiangyu; Au, Kwok Wai Samuel

doi:10.1109/biorob49111.2020.9224428

“…The orientation and position of each segment frame ∑ 𝑂 𝑖 could be calculated recursively, as shown in Eq. ( 33) and (34). The higher-order information (velocities, Jacobians, and accelerations) could be calculated by directly differentiating their position relationships.…”

Section: Continuum Tail Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, the kangaroo rat is thought to be a great benchmark model to investigate the functions of a tail for bipedal locomotion. This idea recently started attracting attention and a series of research efforts were carried out, from both the biological side [31][32] and the robotic side [10,[33][34]. However, the existing efforts on the biological side mainly focus on data interpretation using statistical analysis, and the efforts on the robotic side mainly focus on using the pendulum tail abstraction.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How a serpentine tail assists agile motions of kangaroo rats: a dynamics and control approach

Liu

¹

,

Ben-Tzvi

²

2023

Nonlinear Dyn

2

0

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Kangaroo rat is a good representative for general bipedalism with a serpentine tail. Modeling and analyzing the kangaroo rat motion helps to understand the serpentine tail functionalities in agile motions of bipedal mobile platforms, and this understanding is expected to lay the foundation for the future development of such robotic systems. This paper analyzes the kangaroo rat motions through dynamic modeling and control. The system dynamic model is established using the inertia matrix method, and two typical serpentine tail models are considered: a continuum tail model where the tail is modeled as several constant curvature arcs, and an articulated tail model where the tail is discretized into rigid links. Regularized contact model is used to compute the ground reaction force (GRF). To automatically plan the tail motion, numerical optimal control techniques (i.e., direct collocation method) are utilized. Partial feedback linearization is then used to track the designed tail trajectory. Based on the formulated dynamic model and motion controller, two representative tail functions (airborne righting and supporting) were simulated and analyzed. The results validated the proposed modeling and control framework and showed the nontrivial functionalities of the serpentine tail in helping the kangaroo rat to achieve agile motions. Moreover, comparative studies on the two tail models and the tail segmentations were performed to analyze the model differences. The results demonstrated that the articulated tail model is a good approximation of the continuum tail model, and more tail segments and links enhance the kangaroo rat's ability to deliberately adjust its motion.

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“…Controlling the motion of a 3D biped with a multi-segment serpentine tail is more challenging than a 2D biped [5,10,34] or a 3D single body with a single-segment single-link tail [7-9, 13, 33-34] since the traditional intuition-based tail motion planning and control methods [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][33][34] are not applicable anymore. To solve this problem, we propose to use the numerical optimal control method [42] to automatically synthesize the tail motion for the kangaroo rat agile motions.…”

Section: Tail Motion Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, the kangaroo rat is thought to be a great benchmark model to investigate the functions of a tail for bipedal locomotion. This idea recently started attracting attention and a series of research efforts were carried out, from both the biological side [31][32] and the robotic side [10,[33][34]. However, the existing efforts on the biological side mainly focus on data interpretation using statistical analysis, and the efforts on the robotic side mainly focus on using the pendulum tail abstraction.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How a Serpentine Tail Assists Agile Motions of Kangaroo Rats: A Dynamics and Control Approach

Liu

¹

,

Ben-Tzvi

²

2022

Preprint

0

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Kangaroo rat is a good representative for general bipedalism with a serpentine tail. Modeling and analyzing the kangaroo rat motion helps to understand the serpentine tail functionalities in agile motions of bipedal mobile platforms, and this understanding is expected to lay the foundation for the future development of such robotic systems. This paper analyzes the kangaroo rat motions through dynamic modeling and control. The system dynamic model is established using the inertia matrix method, and two typical serpentine tail models are considered: a continuum tail model where the tail is modeled as several constant curvature arcs, and an articulated tail model where the tail is discretized into rigid links. Regularized contact model is used to compute the ground reaction force (GRF). To automatically plan the tail motion, numerical optimal control techniques (i.e., direct collocation method) are utilized. Partial feedback linearization is then used to track the designed tail trajectory. Based on the formulated dynamic model and motion controller, two representative tail functions (airborne righting and supporting) were simulated and analyzed. The results validated the proposed modeling and control framework and showed the nontrivial functionalities of the serpentine tail in helping the kangaroo rat to achieve agile motions. Moreover, comparative studies on the two tail models and the tail segmentations were performed to analyze the model differences. The results demonstrated that the articulated tail model is a good approximation of the continuum tail model, and more tail segments and links enhance the kangaroo rat’s ability to deliberately adjust its motion.

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“…Moreover, due to its limited range of motion, a tail can be used only for a single jump, not for a repeated sequence [ 6 ]. To circumvent these drawbacks, in [ 7 , 8 , 9 ] the authors attached a morphable inertial tail with 3 Degrees of Freedom (DoFs) (pitch, yaw, and telescoping) on a monopod, a biped and a quadruped, respectively, to enhance the agility of locomotion and to improve safety in landing.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Orientation Control System: Enhancing Aerial Maneuvers for Quadruped Robots

Roscia

¹

,

Cumerlotti

²

,

Prete

³

et al. 2023

Sensors

9

0

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For legged robots, aerial motions are the only option to overpass obstacles that cannot be circumvented with standard locomotion gaits. In these cases, the robot must perform a leap to either jump onto the obstacle or fly over it. However, these movements represent a challenge, because, during the flight phase, the Center of Mass (CoM) cannot be controlled, and there is limited controllability over the orientation of the robot. This paper focuses on the latter issue and proposes an Orientation Control System (OCS), consisting of two rotating and actuated masses (flywheels or reaction wheels), to gain control authority on the orientation of the robot. Due to the conservation of angular momentum, the rotational velocity if the robot can be adjusted to steer the robot’s orientation, even when the robot has no contact with the ground. The axes of rotation of the flywheels are designed to be incident, leading to a compact orientation control system that is capable of controlling both roll and pitch angles, considering the different moments of inertia in the two directions. The concept was tested by means of simulations on the robot Solo12.

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Development of a Bipedal Hopping Robot With Morphable Inertial Tail for Agile Locomotion

Cited by 10 publications

References 32 publications

How a serpentine tail assists agile motions of kangaroo rats: a dynamics and control approach

How a serpentine tail assists agile motions of kangaroo rats: a dynamics and control approach

How a Serpentine Tail Assists Agile Motions of Kangaroo Rats: A Dynamics and Control Approach

Orientation Control System: Enhancing Aerial Maneuvers for Quadruped Robots

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