Tactile Sensing and Terrain-Based Gait Control for Small Legged Robots

For small legged robots, ground contact interactions significantly affect the dynamics and locomotion performance. In this article, we designed thin, robust capacitive tactile sensors and applied them to the feet of a small hexapod with C-shaped rotating legs. The sensors measure contact forces as t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on robotics 2020-02, Vol.36 (1), p.15-27
Main Authors: Wu, X. Alice, Huh, Tae Myung, Sabin, Aaron, Suresh, Srinivasan A., Cutkosky, Mark R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adaptive gait control
Contact force
Feet
Foot
Force
force and tactile sensing
Gait
Legged locomotion
legged robots
Locomotion
Parameter identification
Robot control
Rotation
sensor-based control
Support vector machines
Tactile sensors
Tactile sensors (robotics)
Terrain
terrain classification
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Summary:For small legged robots, ground contact interactions significantly affect the dynamics and locomotion performance. In this article, we designed thin, robust capacitive tactile sensors and applied them to the feet of a small hexapod with C-shaped rotating legs. The sensors measure contact forces as the robot traverses different types of terrain including hard surfaces with high or low friction, sand, and grass. Different gaits perform best on different types of terrain. Useful measured parameters include the magnitude and timing of the peak normal forces, in combination with the leg rotational velocity. The measured parameters were used in a support vector machine classifier to identify terrain types with 82.5% accuracy. Based on gait performance studies, we implemented a terrain-based gait control using real-time terrain classifications. A surface transitioning test shows 17.1% increase in body speed and 13.2% improvement in efficiency as the robot adjusts its gait.
ISSN:1552-3098
1941-0468
DOI:10.1109/TRO.2019.2935336