Proprioceptive localilzatilon for a quadrupedal robot on known terrain

Abstract

We present a novel method for the localization of a legged robot on known terrain using only proprioceptive sensors such as joint encoders and an inertial measurement unit. In contrast to other proprioceptive pose estimation techniques, this method allows for global localization (i.e., localization with large initial uncertainty) without the use of exteroceptive sensors. This is made possible by establishing a measurement model based on the feasibility of putative poses on known terrain given observed joint angles and attitude measurements. Results are shown that demonstrate that the method performs better than dead-reckoning, and is also able to perform global localization from large initial uncertainty