Towards Dynamic Step Climbing For A Quadruped Robot with Compliant Legs

Animals are capable of breathtaking dynamic rough terrain mobility – far superior to that of any existing wheeled, tracked or legged robot. Our research aims to endow our legged robots with increasingly capable dynamic abilities. In this paper, we are presenting a controller that expands the rough terrain abilities of our four-legged robot, Scout II, to dynamic step climbing. Dynamic step climbing permits not only faster operation, but also requires fewer actuated degrees of degrees of freedom than statically stable operation. Indeed, our quadruped model features, like our experimental platform, only one actuator per leg. Ongoing work will expand this behavior to dynamic stair climbing an essential capability for applications in indoor and urban settings.