Integrated Design and Control of a Biped Robot

Abstract

This paper introduces a methodology for the integration of mechanical and control system design of planar biped robots. The control approach is a procedure for the systematic design, analysis, and performance enhancement of controllers that induce provably stable dynamic walking in planar bipeds. Iterative application of this procedure with variations in the mechanical parameters of the biped model enables a designer to drive design changes based upon analytical metrics of stability and efficiency. The outcomes are a dynamically-informed mechanical design and controllers that maximally exploit the unforced dynamics of that design. This methodology has been applied to the design and construction of the prototype biped BIRT (BIped Robot with Three legs). BIRT is a planar biped whose two outside legs are slaved by means of control to act together. The paper provides a detailed description of BIRT’s mechanical system.