CONCURRENT OPTIMIZATION OF MECHANICAL DESIGN AND LOCOMOTION CONTROL OF A LEGGED ROBOT

Abstract

This paper introduces a method to simultaneously optimize design and control parameters for legged robots to improve the performance of locomotion based tasks. The morphology of a quadrupedal robot was optimized for a trotting and bounding gait to achieve a certain speed while tuning the control parameters of a robust locomotion controller at the same time. The results of the optimization show that a change of the structure of the robot can help increase its admissable top speed while using the same actuation units.