Parametric Foot Trajectory Planning for a Hexapod Robot

Abstract

Foot trajectory is a significant factor which affects the movenent performances of the hexapod robot directly. In order to plan efficient and effective foot trajectories for different terrains, the kinematics of the robot is analyzed and two kinds of parametric foot trajectories for different terrains are proposed to achieve foot transfer between the footholds efficiently in this paper. To verify the effectiveness of the parametric foot trajectory planning method, different simulations tailored for a virtual prototype have been conducted. The results certify that the robot can plan an appropriate parametric foot trajectory for differnt terrains efficiently only by setting key parameters and this trajectory can be executed easily by revolving joints harmonically.