We describe the design and construction of a quadruped robot which walks on uneven terrain. A control system which produces a statically stable gait has been implemented; results showing a straight and turning gait are presented. The control of quadruped robots poses interesting challenges due to a small stability margin (when compared to hexapods for example). For this reason most implemented ...

Legged rovers are often considered as viable solutions for traversing unknown terrain. This work addresses the optimal locomotion reconfigurability of quadruped rovers, which consists of obtaining optimal locomotion modes, and transitioning between them. A 2D sagittal plane rover model is considered based on a domestic cat. Using a Genetic Algorithm, the gait, pose and control variables that mi...

The present paper proposes analog integrated circuit (IC) implementation of a biologically inspired controller in quadruped robot locomotion. Our controller is based on the central pattern generator (CPG), which is known as the biological neural network that generates fundamental rhythmic movements in locomotion of animals. Many CPG-based controllers for robot locomotion have been proposed, but...

This paper presents biologically inspired neural controllers for generating motor patterns in a quadruped robot. Sets of arti cial neural networks are presented which provide 1) pattern generation and gait control, allowing continuous passage from walking to trotting to galloping, 2) control of sitting and lying down behaviors, and 3) control of scratching. The neural controllers consist of set...

We have been trying to induce a quadruped robot to walk with medium walking speed on irregular terrain based on biological concepts. We propose the essential conditions for stable dynamic walking on irregular terrain in general, and we design the mechanical system and the neural system by comparing biological concepts with those essential conditions described in physical terms. PD-controller at...

allow quadruped robots to play soccer. The robots are fully autonomous; they cannot exchange messages between each other. They are equipped with a charge-coupled–device camera that allows them to detect objects in the scene. In addition to vision problems such as changing lighting conditions and color confusion, legged robots must cope with “bouncing images” because of successive legs hitting t...

Competing at the RoboCup 2000 Sony legged robot league, the UNSW team won both the challenge competition and all their soccer matches, emerging the outright winners for this league against eleven other international teams. The main advantage that the UNSW team had was speed. A major contributor to the speed was a novel omnidirectional locomotion method developed for the quadruped Sony ERS-110 r...

In this paper, we propose a scheme for fault detection and tolerance of the hexapod robot locomotion on even terrain. The fault stability margin is defined to represent potential stability which a gait can have in case a sudden fault event occurs to one leg. Based on this, the fault-tolerant quadruped periodic gaits of the hexapod walking over perfectly even terrain are derived. It is demonstra...

Dysfunction of the transverse abdominis (TrA) has been associated with LBP. Several therapeutic exercises are prescribed to help target the TrA. Rehabilitative ultrasound imaging (RUSI) is used to capture activation of the TrA during exercise. The purpose was to examine TrA activation during the ADIM and quadruped exercises between healthy and nonsymptomatic LBP patients. We instructed the subj...