Adaptive gait pattern control of a quadruped locomotion robot

The authors have proposed a control system of a quadruped locomotion robot by using nonlinear oscillators. It is composed of a leg motion controller and a gait pattern controller. The leg motion controller drives the actuators of the legs by using local feedback control. The gait pattern controller involves nonlinear oscillators with mutual interactions. In this paper, capability of adaptation of the proposed control system against variance of the environment is verified through numerical simulations and hardware experiments: With the input signals from the touch sensors at the tips of the legs, the nonlinear oscillators tune the phase differences among them through mutual entrainments. As a result, a gait pattern corresponding to the states of the system or to the properties of the environment emerges. And the robot changes its gait pattern adaptively to variance of the environment and establishes a stable locomotion while suppressing the energy consumption.