This work introduces a high-performance, quadruped-assistive-robot expandable platform with wheel–leg mode transformation functions. The robot is designed for transporting goods in residential areas such as apartments, private houses, and office buildings. It capable to move fast on flat ground wheels or use legs other places, especially moving off staircases wheelchair accessible ramps. To ach...

This paper describes the mechanical configuration of a quadruped robot firstly. Each of the four legs consists of three rotary joints. All joints of the robot are actuated by linear hydraulic servo cylinders. Then it deduces the forward and inverse kinematic equations for four legs with D-H transformation matrices. Furthermore, it gives a composite foot trajectory composed of cubic curve and st...

This paper presents a model-based odometry calculation and calibration method (MBO) for quadruped robots. Instead of establishing the direct relation between target and actual speeds as previous methods did, MBO sets up a “parametric physical model” incorporating various properties of the robot and environment such as friction and inertia, through optimization with locomotor data. Based on this...

In this paper, we study the suitability of using simulation in the evolution of locomotion in a quadruped robot. The goal of the evolution is to design a control system that produces fast gaits. We evolve gaits in simulation, and then the best controllers are transferred into the real custom built robot and compared with their simulated versions. The results show effective locomotion, with a 1....

The locomotion of a quadruped robot was examined with the emphasis on the creation, optimization and merging of motions and gaits. A Fourier Series Expansion was performed on the controller commands used in the robot gait. It was found that omitting higher order terms has very little, at times even positive effect on the robot’s performance yet yields a greatly reduced parameter set describing ...

Over the last decades, compliant locomotion and manipulation have become a very active field of research, due to the versatility that robots with such capabilities would offer in many applications. With very few exceptions, generally, robotic applications and experiments take place in controlled environments. One of the reasons of this limited use is that in real world scenarios, robots need to...

Less than half the Earth's landmass is accessible to existing wheeled and tracked vehicles. But people and animals using their legs can go almost anywhere. Our mission at Boston Dynamics is to develop a new breed of rough-terrain robots that capture the mobility, autonomy and speed of living creatures. Such robots will travel in outdoor terrain that is too steep, rutted, rocky, wet, muddy, and ...

Scout II, an autonomous four-legged robot with only one actuator per compliant leg is described. We demonstrate the need to model the actuators and the power source of the robot system carefully in order to obtain experimentally valid models for simulation and analysis. We describe a new, simple running controller that requires minimal task level feedback, yet achieves reliable and fast running...

In this paper, we investigated the effects of the friction condition on walking pattern and energy efficiency, and based on the results, we proposed two new “slip-adaptive” strategies for generating a slip-adaptive walk. The first strategy for a slip-adaptive walk uses a slip reflex via a Central Pattern Generator (CPG) to change the walking pattern. The second strategy for a walk uses a force ...