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Variable Impedance Control for a Single Leg of a Quadruped Robot Based on Contact Force Estimation

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  • Robot and Applications
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Abstract

A quadruped robot interacts with the ground during the stance phase. This interaction will have a great impact on the feet, torso and joints of the robot, thus affecting the stability of its movement and reducing its adaptability in complex environments with features such as uneven terrain. The contact between each foot of the quadruped robot and the ground should not only control the movement trajectory of the leg but also control the force between the leg and the ground to comply with the environmental constraints. In general, the environment is constantly changing, whereas the traditional impedance control parameters are fixed and thus impose fixed-point constraints. To improve the compliance of the feet of a robot and achieve flexible interactions with the ground in various complex environments, such as pipelines, ruins and forests, variable impedance control is proposed. Based on variable inertia, damping and stiffness parameters, a new Lyapunov function is selected to analyse the stability of the closed-loop system. Furthermore, a force estimator is applied to estimate the contact forces, thereby reducing the burden of structural design and the cost of the robot. The effectiveness of the proposed variable impedance control scheme and contact force estimator is verified through numerical simulations in MATLAB.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Automation Science and Electrical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, 100191, China

    Yanan Fan, Zhongcai Pei & Zhiyong Tang

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  1. Yanan Fan
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  2. Zhongcai Pei
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Correspondence to Yanan Fan.

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The authors declare that there is no competing financial interest or personal relationship that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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Yanan Fan received her M.S. degree from the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, North China University of Technology, Beijing, China. Currently she is a doctor in the School of Automation Science and Electrical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China. Her research interests in dynamics and control of robot.

Zhongcai Pei received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical and electrical engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology University of China, Haerbin, China, in 1991, 1994, and 1997, respectively. He is currently with the School of Automation Science and Electrical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, China. His current research interests include robot technology and electro-hydraulic servo control.

Zhiyong Tang received his B.S. degree in fluid power transmission and control from Beihang University in 1997 and his Ph.D. degree in mechanical and electrical engineering from Beihang University in 2003. He is currently with the School of Automation Science and Electrical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, China. His research interests include electro-hydraulic servo control and intelligent robot system.

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Fan, Y., Pei, Z. & Tang, Z. Variable Impedance Control for a Single Leg of a Quadruped Robot Based on Contact Force Estimation. Int. J. Control Autom. Syst. 22, 1360–1370 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12555-022-0601-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12555-022-0601-y

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