Experimental verification of hysteresis in gait transition of a quadruped robot driven by nonlinear oscillators with phase resetting

Abstract

In this paper, we present an experimental validation of a novel decentralized passivity-based control strategy for teleoperating a group of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs): the slave side, consisting of the UAVs, is endowed with large group autonomy by allowing time-varying topology and interrobot/obstacle collision avoidance. The master side, represented by a human operator, controls the group motion and receives suitable force feedback cues informing her/him about the remote slave motion status. Passivity theory is exploited for guaranteeing stability of the slave side and of the overall teleoperation channel. Results of experiments involving the use of 4 quadcopters are reported and discussed, confirming the soundness of the paper theoretical claims.