Attitude Control of a Six-legged Robot in Consideration of Actuator Dynamics by Optimal Servo Control System

There are more than 100 million land mines buried throughout the world, and, at present, the removal of these mines is primarily being done by hand. Our research group has suggested a mine detection method using six-legged robots, such as COMET-I, II, and III, to establish the land mine detection and removal technology. Mine detection by six-legged robots such as COMET-II and III have two manipulators at the front of the body designed for mine detection. Since most mine detection is performed on irregular terrain, it is necessary for a six-legged robot to maintain a stable posture in the mine detection using two manipulators. The authors have examined attitude control methods for achieving stable land mine detection by six-legged robot. With respect to the attitude control, we have examined the control method to control the height of the body and the pitching and the rolling angles according to the force reference signal in the perpendicular direction at the supporting leg. As an attitude control method, we have applied the extended sky hook