Rapid turning at high-speed: Inspirations from the cheetah's tail

Abstract

Inspired by the cheetah, we present a novel tail control system for manoeuvring terrestrial robots at high speed. The mathematic model for a high-speed turn is derived and the model with a tail is shown to be more successful at rapid turns in simulation. We then built a high speed mobile platform with an actuated tail to experimentally validate the control algorithms. Further controller development is performed based on results of the initial simulations. Finally, we show that by rapidly swinging the tail, our system is capable of turning at much higher speeds than a tail-less version.