Reflex control of bipedal locomotion on a slippery surface

Abstract

Biped robots are expected to walk on many different and previously unknown terrains including slippery surfaces on which no prior information is available. It is very important that biped robots have an ability to walk on a slippery surface which it meets so suddenly, since any damage to biped robots will be very costly. In order to prevent falling down on a suddenly encountered slippery surface, this paper proposes a reflex control method for biped robots to quickly recover their posture from a foot slip upon its detection. Computer simulations were performed with a 12-d.o.f. biped robot model and a 6-d.o.f. elastic pad model, the latter of which consists of nonlinear dampers, and linear and nonlinear springs. Simulation results show that the proposed method is very effective in preventing biped robots falling down when walking on a slippery surface.