Trajectory planning and control of a novel walking biped

Abstract

This paper discusses the control of the planar underactuated two-motor, three-link walking robot originally considered by Kiefer et al. (1993). This robot consists of two legs connected to a cylindrical torso by DC-motors. A key problem that exists with this design is the generation of stable gaits while simultaneously guaranteeing bounded torso velocity. We present a solution to this problem by controlling the velocity of the hub through design of the leg trajectories. Partial feedback linearization control is used to track the desired leg trajectories, which in turn determine the zero dynamics governing the hub velocity. A detailed simulation of the robot is used to demonstrate the performance of this proposed control scheme.