Biped and Quadruped Robots That Walk Dynamically on Variable-Angle Slope

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Legged animals move using static walk or dynamic walk. Static walk is statically stabilized movement, and it is the easiest gate for animals. However, dynamic walk has a statically unstable moment and it stabilizes posture of animals only dynamically. Thus, dynamic walk can be achieved using high-level control techniques. Study of dynamic walk was started first by Emura. It was early of 1970'.Emura made a stilts-shaped biped robot in 1972. Because this biped robot topples down without control, posture of the robot was sensed and stabilized so that the robot did-not toppled down. Posture sensor attached on the robot has construction like semicircular canals, and it is very useful for controlling the posture of the robot stably. This semicircular type posture sensor was made by Emura in 1971. This is first artificial semicircular type sensor in the world.Although it has many difficult problems to achieve dynamicamy stabilized walk, we have already attained very stable walk on the flat fl … More oor using 14 degree of freedom biped robot and 12 degree of freedom quadruped robot before 1998. However, it was difficult to attain stable walk on a variable angle slope such as uneven terrain. Thus, we made a belt conveyer whose inclination angle varies gradually about horizontal perpendicular two axes(pitch axis and roll axis)and carried out experiments of dynamic walk on this variable-angle slope.In first year, we remodeled leg mechanism of biped robot and quadruped robot so that foot sole can follow the change of slope angle, and we installed artificial eyes(CCD cameras)to the robot in order to realize stereo vision. Moreover, we developed control software which works under Linux OS to attain real time control. In second year, we made robot arms to give the biped robotyaw moment, because it is difficult to keep walking direction constant when we use dynamic walk method. Experiments of dynamic walk on the belt conveyer of time-varying slope were carried out, and it was confirmed that the biped robot can walk with keeping the dynamic stability even if the slope angle changes, and its walking direction can be kept constant by the help of arms. It was also confirmed that a control method propose by us is useful for dynamic walk of quadruped robot. Less