A Gait Library for Rapid Quadruped Locomotion

Cutting-edge robotics is increasingly moving away from simple repetitive tasks on the factory floor and toward complex operations in unstructured natural environments. Such environments present a wide variety of challenges, particularly for conventional modes of robot locomotion: only a fraction of the earth's land surface can be traversed by wheeled vehicles. Common examples of insurmountable challenges to wheeled motion include rocky mountainsides, rubble fields, disaster sites, and even stairs and ladders. To overcome this limitation, more and more research has been done recently on the possibility of legged robot locomotion. Inspired by the natural capabilities of humans and animals, these legged robots have the potential to traverse a wide variety of terrains, rendering accessible the vast majority of the earth's land surface.