Hexapod robot wall-following control using a fuzzy controller

Abstract

This paper proposes locomotion control of a hexapod robot for the task of wall-following using a manually designed fuzzy controller (FC). Coordination of the gait of each leg in the hexapod robot is controlled via a finite state machine so that the robot moves in a straightforward manner when the swing angle of each leg is identical. This paper proposes orientation control of the hexapod robot using an FC and applies the control approach to the wall-following task. The inputs of the FC are infrared distance sensor values which measure the distances between the wall and the robot. Given the distance-sensor values, the FC controls the robot orientation by changing the swing angles of the middle leg on each side of the robot. Simulations and experiments are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the wall-following control approach.