Designing a Quadruped Robot by Mimicking an Animal1

Zhang Xiuli 2 Zheng Haojun 1 Zhao Guangtao 1 Guan Xu 1

1

Department of Precision Instruments and Mechanology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China 2 Department of Precision Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200072, China

Abstract. The paper explored a way to design mechanical structure and motion pattern of a quadruped robot to realize pitching motion by mimicking a mammal. Four joints configuration styles were acquired by simplifying animals body. Referring to the leg-motion-pattern of a cat, joint motion trajectories were designed and motion relationship between knee and hip was formulated for the quadruped robot. Proved by the simulations and the experiments, all designs were effective and the quadruped robot could walk quickly, naturally and smoothly just like an animal. Otherwise, we found robotic mechanical structure in terms of joint-configuration style, layout of COG, etc. had influence on the performances of the robot. That could result in slippage or not-clearance-from-ground of feet in motion. Key words: quadruped robot, biomimic, joint configuration, motion trajectory, structure design

Designing a legged robot was a tough task because there were complex nonlinear dynamics involved in the multi-rigid-bodies system of a legged robot with redundant degrees of freedom (DOF). It was very difficult to coordinate so many DOFs to achieve a smooth movement. It was a shortcut to design the structure and motion trajectories of a legged robot by mimicking its counterparts in animal kingdom. There were many successful examples such as a robotic fish, robotic lobster, robotic snake, robotic insect, etc. But it was seldom to design a legged robot by mimicking an animal from both its body and motion. It was worth to explore in this field. This paper introduced a quadruped robot whose mechanical structure and joint motion trajectory was designed by mimicking a cat. Section 1 presented the structure designing of the quadruped robot. Animals body could be simplified as four kinds of joints configurations. Section 2 presented the motion trajectory designing by mimicking
1

Funded by the China National 863 Hi-Tech Program (No. 2001AA422330) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

animals motion pattern. A mapping function from hip to knee was formulated. Section 3 presented the simulation and experimental results by employing the above designs. Section 4 delivered our conclusions.

Designing the structure of a quadruped robot by mimicking animals body

A leg of a quadruped mammal had five segments, which compose five joints by connecting with trunk. Each joint had 1 to 3 DOFs. Owing to the super-redundant freedoms, the motion of animal was very flexible. There were two sorts of joint in animals, knee-style joint and elbow-style joint. Knee-style joint was one whose angle point was equidirectional to the pitch, for example, knee in a human. Elbow-style joint was one whose angle point was opposite to the pitch, such as the elbow and the ankle in a human. Generally, knee-style joint and elbow-style joint lay alternately in one leg, so that the leg could move up and down like a scissor. The joints configuration of front and hind legs was of mirror image. The corresponding joints bend oppositely, and they belong to knee-style joint or elbow-style joint (see Fig. 1) respectively. The joint-configuration style of animal was advantageous and efficient to motion.

Fig. 1 Body structure of a quadruped mammal (left: hind leg, right: front leg, three phases shown in the figure) It was impossible to design the structure of a robot like an animal with 5segmented legs and super-redundant freedoms, or controlling the robot would become much too complicated (such as Ilg Ws Bisam [1]). So it must be reasonably simplified of animals body when used in robot. According to Fig. 1, Animals joint configuration could be simplified as four kinds (see Fig. 2): a) All joints in front and hind legs were knee-style joints (Tsujita [2]); b) All were elbow-style joints (Kimuras Tekken [3]); c) Mirror image with front legs in knee-style and hind legs in elbow-style. We named it outward-pointing configuration;

d) Mirror image but reverse to c) with front legs in elbow-style joint and hind legs in knee-style joint (Sonys Aibo). We named it inward-pointing configuration.

(a) all-elbow configuration

(b) all-knee configuration

(c) outward-pointing configuration

(d) inward-pointing configuration

Fig. 2 Simplified joint-configuration styles of a mammal According to the above principles, we designed the quadruped robot, Biosbot, which need complete pitching motion. Each leg of Biosbot had 3 joints of hip, knee and ankle. Each joint had 1 DOF of pitch. The robot had 12 DOFs in all. The hip and knee were active joints. The passive joints of ankle were added in order to enhance the adaptability to terrain. All joints could revolve up to around 180 degree. Biosbot could form four different structures corresponding to Fig. 2 (see Fig. 3). The size of the robot was 400mm320mm300mm.

a) all-elbow configuration

b) all-knee configuration

c) outward-pointing configuration

d) inward-pointing configuration

Fig. 3 The quadruped robot Biosbot in four different joint configurations

Designing the joint motion trajectories of the robot by formulating a cats motion

The joint motion trajectories had very important effects on the performance of a legged robot, which determine whether or not the motion was steady and coordinated. Traditionally, the joints trajectories of a legged robot were got by inverse kinematics; that was, planning foot placements then inverse-calculating the angles of all joints. That method was complex and slow in calculating a dynamic equation. And it was also difficult to obtain a smooth and suitable trajectory. On the contrary, the joints motion pattern of a mammal was so natural and elegant. It could be good reference for a robot. We conducted the research on the motion of a one-year-old cat by using a camera. Analyzing the motion videos, we found there was a specific relationship between cats knee and hip when moving. The knee and the hip in the same leg move synchronously during swing phase. Knee flexes in the prophase of the swing and reaches maximum position in the middle, while it extends in the anaphase of the swing and reaches to its original position at end. During stance phase, the hip swings backward and knee keeps motionless (see Fig. 4). Such a relationship between hip and knee had been observed in [4]. So it could be a common regularity in quadruped mammals. Such motion relationship of hips and knees could ensure that feet of swing legs always clear ground, and dont interfere with the motion of stance legs.

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

Fig. 4 The motion of a cat (one period, the lines in the right front leg of the cat indicates the position of its hip and knee) Referring to the motion pattern of a mammal, we formulated the relationship between the mammals hip and knee as . That was, the motion trajectory of knee joint was obtained by inversing and translating the motion curve of hip joint in the same leg. In order to avoid rubbing and stumbling at phase switch (stance to swing), alterable gain, k in , was introduced to perfect knee joint curve to produce higher speed at beginning and at end. To knee-style joint and elbow-style joint, knee joints and hip joints had different relation of revolution. So we added a sign flag, sgn(), to the function, which acquired different value according to the joint style. The position function of knee joint was defined as follows:

& sgn( )( Ah h (t ) ) k (t ), ( h 0, swing phase), k (t ) = & ( h < 0, stance phase), 0, k (t ) = k (1 + h (t ) ), 0 Ah k0 = Ak / Ah , (knee), flag of joint style: = 1, (elbow ), 1, d ( @ / dt ).
where Ah and Ak was the amplitude of hip joint and knee joint respectively, h and k was the angle of hip and knee joints respectively. k was the gain. The quadruped robot adopts the inward-pointing configuration. The four hips joints were controlled by the mathematic model of central pattern generator whose outputs were used as angular position signals (see [5]). The position signals of four knees joints were generated by . The numerical simulation results of the quadruped robot in trot gait were shown in Fig. 5.

(a) Curves of knee and hip joints

(b) Trajectories of COG and feet

Fig. 5 Motion curves of the quadruped robot (COG: Center of Gravity) Known from the figure: a) The motion relationship between the hip and the knee exhibited by the curves consists with mammals. The curves were smooth without peaks or steps. b) Undulation amplitude of COG was 0.007m. According to the quadruped robots height of 0.3m, the vertical undulation ratio of COG, 2.3%, could be obtained. A smooth and steady motion could be assumed.

c)

The foot clearance was always greater than zero, and the maximal height was 0.02m. No rubbing occurs when swinging. d) Step length of the motion was 0.24m. According to the period of 0.8s, the theoretical average velocity of 0.3m/s was ensured. e) Learned from the feet trajectories, leg lifts up quickly and touches down slowly in knee-style joint, so it was advantageous to avoid rubbing. The impact on robot from ground was smaller. So knee-style joint was fit for fast walk. All was opposite in elbow-style joint. But it was of more benefit to detecting obstacles by making use of the fore-extended feet attached tactile sensors to, so that complicated functions, e.g. stepping over obstacles, could be realized.

Simulations and experiments of walking

With the quadruped robot Biosbot, we conducted the animation simulations and physical experiments. The results from the simulations suggested that a smooth and coordinated motion could be produced by employing the above designs. The motion pictures of the quadruped robot with all-elbow configuration were showed in Fig. 6.

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)

(f)

(g)

(h)

Fig. 6 Motion simulation of the quadruped (1 period, trot) With inward-pointing configuration, the quadruped robot could walk in pitch successfully and the motion was quick, steady and natural. The motion velocity was 0.24m/s, which was a little different to the theoretical velocity because of slipping. The motion pictures of the quadruped robot in trot were shown in Fig. 7.

a) phase switch (leg 1 and leg 3 at PEP)

b) leg 1 and leg 3 at swing

c) phase switch (leg 2 and leg 4 at PEP)

d) leg 2 and leg 4 at swing

Fig. 7 Quadruped robot Biosbot in motion (PEP: posterior extreme position, leg number: 1- left front, 2- right front, 3- right hind, 4- left hind.) The walking experiments of the quadruped robot with different joint configurations suggested that all these joint configuration styles were effectual to realize locomotion. But there was serious slipping in the motion under all-elbow configuration and the hind legs of the robot hardly cleared ground. The phenomena existed in the motion under other three configurations to some extent. The reason could be the COG of the robot offsetted at the hind of its body. That resulted in unbalanced load on each leg. The hind legs, with heavier load, could not clear the ground under a dynamic motion. Outward-pointing configuration and inwardpointing configuration was of centro-symmetry. Such configurations styles and the resulted mirror motions of legs ensured that the COG of robot was nearly located in the center of the supporting area. Slipping could be inhibited and the motion was steadier to some degree. The mechanical structure of Biosbot, however, need to be improved to get a better performance.

Conclusions

Proved by the theoretical analysis, computer simulations and physical experiments, it was reasonable that the structure of the quadruped robot, Biosbot, was designed by mimicking animals body. It was an effective and easy way to design joint motion trajectories by referring to mammals motion pattern. Our future aim was to explore the way to realize biological reflex mechanisms in robot. Researches in that direction would endow the robot with more complicated and advanced abilities, such as walking up and down slopes, stepping over obstacles, etc.

References

[] Ilg W, Albiez J, jedele H, et al. Adaptive periodic movement control for the four legged walking machine BISAM [A]. IEEE. Robotics & Automation [C]. Detroit Michigan, 1999. 2354-2359. [] Tsujita K, Tsuchiya K, Onat A. Adaptive gait pattern control of a quadruped locomotion robot [A]. Proc of the IEEE Conf on Intelligent Robots and System [C]. Maui, Hawaii, 2001. 2318-2325. [] Kimura H, Fukuoka Y, Takase K. 3D adaptive dynamic walking of a quadruped robot by using neural system model [A]. CLAWAR [C], 2001. 97-104. [] Zhang Ruihong, Jin Wende, Zhang Jichuan, et al. Normal gait patterns on different terrain [J]. Journal of Tsinghua (Science and Technology), 2000, 40(8): 77-80 (in Chinese). [] Zhang Xiuli, Zheng Haojun, Duan Guanghong, et al. CPG-based bio-gait research of the quadruped [A]. Proc of the 11th International Conference on Advanced Robotics [C], V2. Coimbra, Portugal, 2003. 1009-1013.