Robotics: Science and Systems XV

A Hierarchical Geometric Framework to Design Locomotive Gaits for Highly Articulated Robots

Baxi Zhong, Yasemin Ozkan-Aydin, Guillaume Sartoretti, Jennifer Rieser, Chaohui Gong, Haosen Xing, Howie Choset, Daniel Goldman

Abstract:

Motion planning for mobile robots with many degrees-of-freedom (DoF) is challenging due to their high-dimensional configuration spaces. To manage this curse of dimensionality, this paper proposes a new hierarchical framework that decomposes the system into sub-systems (based on shared capabilities of DoFs), for which we can design and coordinate motions. Instead of constructing a high-dimensional configuration space, we establish a hierarchy of two-dimensional spaces on which we can visually design gaits using geometric mechanics tools. We then coordinate motions among the two-dimensional spaces in a pairwise fashion to obtain desired robot locomotion. Further geometric analysis of the two-dimensional spaces allows us to visualize the contribution of each sub-system to the locomotion, as well as the contribution of the coordination among the sub-systems. We demonstrate our approach by designing gaits for quadrupedal robots with different morphologies, and experimentally validate our findings on a robot with a long actuated back and intermediate-sized legs.

Download:

Bibtex:

  
@INPROCEEDINGS{Goldman-RSS-19, 
    AUTHOR    = {Baxi Zhong AND Yasemin Ozkan-Aydin AND Guillaume Sartoretti AND Jennifer Rieser AND Chaohui Gong AND Haosen Xing AND Howie Choset AND Daniel Goldman}, 
    TITLE     = {A Hierarchical Geometric Framework to Design Locomotive Gaits for Highly Articulated Robots}, 
    BOOKTITLE = {Proceedings of Robotics: Science and Systems}, 
    YEAR      = {2019}, 
    ADDRESS   = {FreiburgimBreisgau, Germany}, 
    MONTH     = {June}, 
    DOI       = {10.15607/RSS.2019.XV.067} 
}