The use of a free gait becomes necessary when walking over discontinuous terrain or when performing changes in the heading of the robot. If no look-ahead planning is possible, the free gait must be generated reactively. We present a basic gait generation strategy and a heuristic enhancement of it that results in a significant efficiency improvement. In the search for a better strategy, we decid...

Gait generation is the formulation and selection of a sequence of coordinated leg and body motions that propel a legged robot along a desired path. Approaches to gait generation can be classified into control, behavioral, rule-based, and constraintbased paradigms. We survey these models of gait generation and introduce the Ambler, a hexapod robot that can circulate its legs to produce unique ga...

In this paper, we address the problem of terrain classification using a technically blind hexapod walking robot. The proposed approach is built on top of the existing method based on analysis of the feedback from the robot’s actuators and the desired trajectory. The formed method uses features for the Support Vector Machine classification method that assumes a regular time-invariant gait to con...

The focus of this work is a systematic study of the passive gait of a compass-like, planar, biped robot on inclined slopes. The robot is kinematically equivalent to a double pendulum, possessing two kneeless legs with point masses and a third point mass at the "hip" joint. Three parameters, namely, the ground-slope angle and the normalized mass and length of the robot describe its gait. We show...

This paper presents the design of a quadrupedal robot that can automatically adapt its gait to, and climb, staircases of different configurations. This is accomplished by endowing the robot with a parameterized gait for stair climbing: First, a gait plan is synthesized that allows the robot to climb a stair of known dimensions. Second, the robot approaches a previously unseen stair and perceive...

Gait study on quadruped robots with a locked joint failure is discussed in this paper. The quadruped robot has a moving appendage which, attached onto the robot body, serves as a controllable apparatus that changes the equivalent position of the center of gravity. We propose a crab gait sequence for the quaruped robot to continue its static walking despite an occurrence of a locked joint failur...

The evolution of a dynamic walking gait of biped robot is presented in this paper. The gait is generated for a biped robot to walk on flat ground and climb up stairs. For the trajectory based gait generation, various parameters satisfy ZMP criterion and can realize continuous walking. The evolutionary algorithm is used to choose the parameter combinations. Simulation studies show that the algor...

This paper studies periodic gaits of quadruped locomotion systems. The purpose is to determine the best set of gait and locomotion variables during walking, for different robot velocities, based on two formulated performance measures. A set of experiments reveals the influence of the gait and locomotion variables upon the proposed indices, namely that the gait and the locomotion parameters shou...

A neural network mechanism is proposed to modify the gait of a biped robot that walks on sloping surfaces using sensory inputs. The robot climbs a sloping surface from a level surface with no priori knowledge of the inclination of the surface. By training the neural network while the robot is walking, the robot adjusts its gait and finally forms a gait that is as stable as when it walks on the ...

A leg-wheel robot with four mechanically separated legs and two wheels is highly mobile and stable on rough terrain. We discuss the strategy for the robot movement over large rough terrain, classifying topographical features into 13 patterns of combined terrain surface. To traverse all classified terrain, we propose three adaptive gaits: (1) Step-up gait in which frontfoot landing is higher tha...