Gait Control of Hexapod Robot Based on Field-Programmable Gate Array and Central Pattern Generator

Abstract

This paper attempts to improve the terrain adaptability of hexapod robot through gait control. Firstly, the multi-leg coupling in the tripodal gait of the hexapod robot was modeled by Hopf oscillator. Then, annular central pattern generator (CPG) was adopted to simulate the leg movements of hexapod robot between signals. Furthermore, a physical prototype was designed for the gait control test on field-programmable gate array (FPGA), and the algorithm of the rhythmic output of the model was programmed in Verilog, a hardware description language. Finally, the effectiveness of our gait control method was verified through the simulation on Xilinx. The results show that the phase difference of the CPG network remained stable; the designed hexapod robot moved at about 5.15cm/s stably in a tripodal gait, and outperformed wheeled and tracked robots in terrain adaptation. The research findings lay a solid basis for the design of all-terrain multi-leg robots.

Kinematics Analysis and Simulation of Biped Transportation Robot in Stair Climbing Scene

“…With the progress of science and technology the application of intelligent mobile robots is more and more common. Research on bionic service robots is flourishing in China and abroad [1][2][3][4]. While most handling robots are oriented to the service industry and are mainly used for planar mobile transportation, it is hard to realize flexible handling in some non-planar scenes such as going up stairs and climbing slopes.…”