Dynamic maneuverability through voluntary morphosis in a four-legged robot

Abstract

Dynamic maneuverability is an inherent skill of any legged animal locomotion. Thus it is useful and challenging for a physical four-legged robot that runs in open-loop control. This paper presents a concept of dynamic maneuverability in a four-legged system that can alter its morphology through leg reconfiguration, i.e., voluntary morphosis <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">1</sup> . By exploiting this unique feature of the robot body, we designed a dynamic maneuverability control in open-loop that changes the leg length of the ipsilateral pairs of legs to smoothly control the turning of the robot on a particular gait. We verified our control approach on trot gait locomotion. Our results demonstrate that the maneuverability in a four-legged robot is mainly the result of an active change in robot morphology.