Legged robots display a characteristically periodic motion. Measuring and tracking this motion has traditionally been performed using general inertial measurement techniques. While widely applied in robotics, this approach is limited in dynamic legged locomotion due to the excessive accumulation of drift from severe impact shocks (nearly 9g in single leg experiments). This paper introduces the ...

This paper presents and empirically compares solutions to the problem of vision and self-localization on a legged robot. Specifically, given a series of visual images produced by a camera on-board the robot, how can the robot effectively use those images to determine its location over time? Legged robots, while generally more robust than wheeled robots to locomotion in various terrains (Wetterg...

This paper describes a method to achieve a visioncued swaying task in unknown environments utilizing adaptive visual servoing. The proposed method has a hybrid structure consisting of a controller to keep the distances between feet constant (a stance servoing controller), and an adaptive visual servoing controller. Making use of the method, the motion of each joint need not be pre-programmed, b...

Research on running robots has generally focussed on the steady-state. When the ground has limited foot placement surfaces or there are sudden changes in height then steady-state running is not possible. It becomes necessary to make step-bystep adjustments to place the foot. In this paper a mass-spring-damper model of a robot’s leg is used to develop a hopping controller capable of meeting rapi...

Legged robots are popular candidates for missions in challenging terrains due to their versatile locomotion strategies. Terrain classification is a key enabling technology autonomous legged robots, allowing them harness innate flexibility adapt the demands of operating environment. We show how highly capable machine learning techniques, namely gated recurrent neural networks, allow our target r...

This paper reviews evolutionary approaches to the automatic design of real robots exhibiting a given behavior in a given environment. Such a methodology has been successfully applied to various wheeled or legged robots, and to numerous behaviors including wall-following, obstacle-avoidance, light-seeking, or arena cleaning. Its potentialities and limitations are discussed in the text and direct...

This paper discusses the design of a three degree-of-freedom (3-DOF) non-redundant walking robot with decoupled stance and propulsion locomotion phases that is exactly constrained in stance and utilizes adaptive underactuation to robustly traverse terrain of varying ground height. Legged robots with a large number of actuated degrees of freedom can actively adapt to rough terrain but often end ...

The paper provides experimental evidence to support the recently introduced Switching Four-bar Mechanism (SFM) model as a template for small-scale legged locomotion in quasi-static operation regimes. The evidence suggests that the SFM is suitable for capturing salient motion behaviors—or motion primitives—for multiple, morphologically distinct miniature legged robots. Such primitives can be use...

A state-of-the-art simulation technique that solves the equations of motion together with the set-valued contact and impulse laws by the time-stepping scheme of Moreau is introduced to the legged robotics community. An analysis is given that shows which of the many variations of the method fits best to legged robots. Two different methods to solve the discretized normal cone inclusions are comp...

This paper presents a modular approach to the development of an interactive software environment for gait generation and control design of Sony legged robots. A number of modules have been developed for monitoring robot states, gait generation, control design and image processing. A dynamic model of the leg and wheel-like motion are proposed to combine both wheeled and legged properties to prod...