Artificial Life and Robotics

, Volume 5, Issue 3, pp 152–158 | Cite as

Decentralized autonomous control of a quadrupedal locomotion robot using oscillators

Original Article
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Abstract

This article deals with the design of a control system for a quadrupedal locomotion robot. The proposed control system is composed of a leg motion controller and a gait pattern controller within a hierarchical architecture. The leg controller drives actuators at the joints of the legs using a high-gain local feedback control. It receives the command signal from the gait pattern controller. The gait pattern controller, on the other hand, involves nonlinear oscillators. These oscillators interact with each other through signals from the touch sensors located at the tips of the legs. Various gait patterns emerge through the mutual entrainment of these oscillators. As a result, the system walks stably in a wide velocity range by changing its gait patterns and limiting the increase in energy consumption of the actuators. The performance of the proposed control system is verified by numerical simulations.

Key words

Quadrupedal locomotion robot Oscillators Decentralized autonomous control 
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Copyright information

© ISAROB 2001

Authors and Affiliations

  • Katsuyoshi Tsujita
    • 1
  • Kazuo Tsuchiya
    • 1
  • Ahmet Onat
    • 1
  1. 1.Department of Aeronautics and AstronauticsGraduate School of Engineering, Kyoto UniversityKyotoJapan

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