DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION OF WALKING BIPEDAL ROBOT

Abstract

It is easier for bipedal robots to exist in a human oriented environment than for other types of robots. Furthermore, dynamic walking is more efficient than static walking. For a biped robot achieve dynamic balance while walking, a dynamic gait must be developed. Two different approaches to gait generation are presented—an intuitive approach using software for gait animation, and a periodic approach that provides a scalable gait with parameters for controlling step length, step height and step period. Despite several decades of research, locomotion of bipedal robots is still far from achieving the graceful motions and the dexterity observed in human walking. Most of today’s bipeds are controlled by analytical approaches based on multi body dynamics, pre-calculated joint trajectories, and Zero-Moment Point considerations to ensure stability. However, beside their considerable achievements these methods show several drawbacks like strong model dependency, high energetic and computational costs, and vulnerability to unknown disturbances. In contrast to this, human locomotion is elegant, highly robust, fast, and energy efficient. These facts gave rise to the main hypothesis of this thesis, namely that a control system based on insights into human motion control can yield human-like walking capabilities in two-legged robots.