A Balance Control Strategy for a Walking Biped Robot under Unknown Lateral External Force using a Genetic Algorithm

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a force-resisting balance control strategy for a walking biped robot subject to an unknown continuous external force. We assume that the biped robot has 12 degrees of freedom (DOFs) with position-controlled joint motors, and that the unknown continuous external force is applied to the pelvis of the biped robot in the single support phase (SSP) walking gait. The suggested balance control strategy has three phases. Phase 1 is to recognize the application of an unknown external force using only zero moment point (ZMP) sensors. Phase 2 is to control the joint motors according to a method that uses a genetic algorithm and the linear interpolation technique. Against an external continuous force, the robot retrieves the pre-calculated solutions and executes the desired torques with interpolation performed in real time. Phase 3 is to make the biped robot move from the SSP to the double support phase (DSP), rejecting external disturbances using the sliding mode controller. The strategy is verified by numerical simulations and experiments.