The brainstem pedunculopontine nucleus has a likely, although unclear, role in gait control, and is a potential deep brain stimulation target for treating resistant gait disorders. These disorders are a major therapeutic challenge for the ageing population, especially in Parkinson’s disease where gait and balance disorders can become resistant to both dopaminergic medication and subthalamic nuc...

This paper addresses a gait generation problem for the compass-type biped robot on periodically unlevel grounds. We first derive the continuous/discrete compass-type biped robots (CCBR/DCBR) via continuous/discrete mechanics, respectively. Next, we formulate a optimal gait generation problem on periodically unlevel grounds for the DCBR as a finite dimensional nonlinear optimization problem, and...

Gait generation for hexapod robots can be accomplished with a two-phase process, whereby leg cycles that effectively provide thrust are learned and then the proper selection and coordination of these cycles needed to produce a gait are learned. Genetic algorithms can be used to learn both the leg cycles and the coordination. In previous work, this technique was used successfully to generate gai...

This paper deals with the stable walking of biped robots. The presented control algorithm enables a biped to perform stable walking without using any precomputed trajectories. The algorithm merges gait trajectory generation and control, and can be used for global control, for local control along an existing trajectory as well as for online computation of gait trajectories for stable walking. Th...

Exoskeletons are utilized extensively in robotic rehabilitation and power augmentation purposes. One of the most recognised control algorithms utilized in this field is the impedance controller. Impedance control approach provides the capability of realizing different rehabilitation exercises by tuning the target impedance gains. Trial and error experimental approach is one of the most common m...

In this paper an Energy Dissipation Rate Control (EDRC) method is introduced, which could provide stable walking or running gaits for legged robots. This method is realized by developing a semi-analytical pattern generation approach for a robot during each Single Support Phase (SSP). As yet, several control methods based on passive dynamic walking have been proposed by researchers to provide an...

In the development of robotic systems, an interactive software platform plays an important role for control design and parameter optimisation. This paper presents a modular approach to the development of a hybrid software platform for Sony quadruped robots. Such a platform consists of an overhead vision system, a Sony AIBO robot and a desktop PC, and is designed to be interactive in order to sp...

In this paper, we solve the gait planning problem by using the Flexible LIP model, which has been shown to be more realistic w.r.t. the LIP for cost-effective or compliant biped robots for gait generation. We extend a stable inversion approach to obtain bounded Center of Mass (CoM) reference trajectories and show several advantages compared to preview control: avoidance of numerical integration...

This paper presents a GA (Genetic Algorithm) approach to the development of locomotion gait for Sony quadruped robots. The selection of GA parameters such as the population size and recombination methods is made to be flexible and strive towards optimal performance autonomously. An interactive software environment with an overhead CCD camera is used to evaluate the performance of the generated ...

Numerical simulation and optimization of gaits for quadruped robots based on nonlinear multibody dynamics models of legged locomotion have made progress recently. A fully threedimensional dynamical model of Sony’s four-legged robot is used to state an optimal control problem for a symmetric, dynamically stable gait. The optimal control problem is solved by a sparse direct collocation method. Nu...