Huixiang Xie, Jianzhong Shang, and Mojtaba Ahmadi
Quadruped robot, blind trotting, sloped terrain, virtual modelcontrol
This paper presents effective strategies for a quadruped robot trotting over unperceived sloped terrain. The problems of sloped terrain adaptation mainly include terrain transitions, tumbling and slipping. Inspired from the behaviours of quadruped animals in nature, four strategies are proposed to solve these problems: the step-downward swing trajectory adapts terrain transitions; small stride reduces the chance of tumbling over; the lopsided posture and adapted forward force avoid slippage on a slope. These strategies are integrated with a locomotion controller, which in this paper is a virtual model controller, to automatically change the robot behaviour on sloped terrain according to the orientation signals. The effectiveness of the strategies is relatively analysed by simulations and the results demonstrate that the strategies can effectively increase the capability of the controller for sloped terrain adaptation.
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