Article

The International Journal of

Robotics Research
Terrain-blind walking of planar 1–17
Ó The Author(s) 2019

underactuated bipeds via velocity Article reuse guidelines:

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DOI: 10.1177/0278364919870242
decomposition-enhanced control journals.sagepub.com/home/ijr

Martin Fevre , Bill Goodwine and James P Schmiedeler

Abstract
In this article, we develop and assess a novel approach for the control of underactuated planar bipeds that is based on
velocity decomposition. The new controller employs heuristic rules that mimic the functionality of transverse linearization
feedback control and that can be layered on top of a conventional hybrid zero dynamics (HZD)-based controller. The
heuristics sought to retain HZD-based control’s simplicity and enhance disturbance rejection for practical implementation
on realistic biped robots. The proposed control strategy implements a feedback on the time rate of change of the decom-
posed uncontrolled velocity and is compared with conventional HZD-based control and transverse linearization feedback
control for both vanishing and non-vanishing disturbances. Simulation studies with a point-foot, three-link biped show
that the proposed method has nearly identical performance to transverse linearization feedback control and outperforms
conventional HZD-based control. For the non-vanishing case, the velocity decomposition-enhanced controller outper-
forms HZD-based control, but takes fewer steps on average before failure than transverse linearization feedback control
when walking on uneven terrain without visual perception of the ground. The findings were validated experimentally on a
planar, five-link biped robot for eight different uneven terrains. The velocity decomposition-enhanced controller outper-
formed HZD-based control while maintaining a relatively low specific energetic cost of transport (;0.45). The biped
robot ‘‘blindly’’ traversed uneven terrains with changes in terrain height accumulating to 5% of its leg length using the
stand-alone low-level controller.

Keywords
Underactuated robots, legged locomotion, velocity decomposition, disturbance rejection, uneven terrain walking

1. Introduction underactuated bipeds, which exploit the same natural

Legged robots have distinct advantages over wheeled robots
for many applications, such as traversing uneven terrain or
navigating in many human-made environments. Boston
Dynamics’ BigDog and LS3 quadruped robots were the
first legged robots to showcase animal-like stability charac-
teristics on uneven terrain (Boston Dynamics, 2009, 2013).
More recently, the Atlas biped used human-like coordina-
tion of its arms, legs, and torso to achieve full-body balance
and stability when traversing uneven terrain (Nelson et al.,
2019). For such robots, however, the promise of robustness
typically outweighs efficiency, which motivates the pursuit
of similar advances in energetic efficiency to achieve a rela-
tively low cost of transport more similar to animals and
humans as well.
As biped locomotors, humans achieve efficient walking
with significant exchange of potential and kinetic energy
within each step. The study of bipedal locomotion inspired
the design of passive bipeds (McGeer, 1990a,b) and
dynamics of human locomotion to produce highly efficient
gaits. One example is the minimally actuated Cornell
Ranger biped that relied primarily on passive dynamics to
walk over 65 km on a single battery pack (Bhounsule et al.,
2014). This class of bipeds, however, faces control chal-
lenges that stem from the hybrid nature of the unactuated
dynamics and has limited capabilities when trying to reject
large disturbances in the unactuated degrees of freedom
(DOFs).
University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, USA
Corresponding author:
Martin Fevre, 365 Fitzpatrick Hall of Engineering, Department of
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, University of Notre Dame, Notre
Dame, IN 46556, USA.
Email: mfevre@nd.edu
2 The International Journal of Robotics Research 00(0)
1.1. Motivation
When a preview of the terrain is available, footstep plan-
ning in slow time scale optimization schemes can greatly
enhance stability characteristics on uneven terrain. Some
work has employed a receding horizon map to traverse
dynamic environments with moving obstacles (Michel
et al., 2005). When the slow time scale optimization cannot
be implemented in real-time, it is possible to design the
control policy offline and use interpolation inside the fast
time scale control system (Park et al., 2013). The Atrias
biped (Hubicki et al., 2016) employed a gait switching
approach to walk on challenging stepping stones that were
22% of its leg length, but the strategy relied on the robot
having precise knowledge of the terrain (Nguyen et al.,
2018).
When the robot is ‘‘blind-folded’’ (i.e., no visual percep-
tion of the ground), however, most of these control strate-
gies do not apply. Moreover, one may not wish to make use
of the sensing information when it is inaccurate, and while
state-of-the-art applications in the field of legged robotics
are bound to make use of terrain perception to traverse
human-made environments, simulating terrain-blind walk-
ing replicates the worst-case scenario for the robot and
assesses the controller’s robustness to terrain sensing errors
that often cause instabilities in practice. A lower-order tem-
plate model was used to design a gait adaptation framework
for the high-DOF Atlas biped that did not require terrain
perception to reliably walk over randomly generated uneven
terrain with height changes of up to 5% of the leg length
(Liu et al., 2016). Layering a terrain-blind control strategy
on top of slow time scale motion planning that makes use
of terrain sensing information should result in a combined
approach that is more robust. Table 1 lists the disturbance
rejection performance of some well-known biped robots
walking on uneven terrain.
Formal methods for designing fast time scale control
strategies that enable underactuated biped robot walking
motions that are characteristic of human locomotion are
well-established (Sharbafi and Seyfarth, 2017). Hybrid zero
dynamics (HZD)-based control uses Poincaré maps to guar-
antee the stability of a periodic motion (Westervelt et al.,
2007, 2003). The HZD formulation was extended to aperio-
dic and spatial walking on Atrias, but the stand-alone HZD-
based controller initially failed on the wave field at the
University of Michigan, and Atrias ultimately relied on
machine learning to traverse the sinusoidal terrain (Da
et al., 2017). MABEL employed a finite-state machine to
estimate terrain variations in real-time and switch among
step-up, step-down, and trip reflex controllers (Park et al.,
2013). The switching strategy allowed MABEL to clear
steps that were 18% of the biped’s leg length, but the stand-
alone HZD-based controller failed when taking a 5% step-
down. Thus, augmenting the capabilities of HZD-based
control as a low-level controller also has the potential to
increase the performance of numerous existing control stra-
tegies. HZD-based control, however, does not employ any
feedback mechanism on the unactuated dynamics, so this
method can be less effective when the robot is pushed off
the zero dynamics trajectory (Post and Schmiedeler, 2014).
An example of fast time-scale control that shows
improved robustness in comparison with HZD-based con-
trol is transverse linearization feedback control, which adds
a feedback on the error of the distance from the zero
dynamics trajectory. The concept of transverse linearization
can be seen as moving Poincaré sections along the periodic
orbit (Banaszuk and Hauser, 1995). Considerable improve-
ments were later made to accommodate ground impacts for
hybrid mechanical systems (Shiriaev et al., 2005). Using a
receding horizon strategy to solve the optimal control prob-
lem offline, transverse linearization feedback control was
successfully implemented in simulation on a three-link
biped (Shiriaev et al., 2008), and subsequent experiments
were conducted on a compass-gait walker (Manchester
et al., 2011).
A three-link walker with a massive torso is the simplest
bipedal model for which the stability challenges of keeping
the torso upright can be considered, and, despite recent
work that reduced the complexity of the transverse
dynamics computations (Tang et al., 2017), transverse line-
arization feedback control remains difficult to implement
in real-time. It has not yet been validated experimentally on
a robot with more than two DOFs.
1.2. Heuristic control
When using template models of walking, roboticists use
simplified dynamics to facilitate the analysis and control of
biped locomotion (Liu et al., 2016). The approach largely
follows from Alexander’s concept of reducing the control
problem to one of adapting the motion of the center of mass
(CoM) in simple templates instead of regulating the high
number of DOFs (Alexander, 1995).
An alternative to using template models is to simplify
complex control laws, which is the approach taken here. A
recent application of HZD-based heuristics designed and
stabilized walking gaits on a planar underactuated biped
model in 2D and successfully implemented it on a physical
3D robot by using decoupled feedback controllers for the
lateral and sagittal planes of the robot (Da et al., 2016). In
this case, a speed regulator heuristic included a target offset
in the swing leg angle to mitigate the effect of inherent cou-
pling between sagittal and frontal dynamics that initially
caused the largest eigenvalue of the system to be outside
the unit circle. The experimental results in Da et al. (2016)
highlighted:
1. the relevance of heuristic control in practical robotic
applications at the expense of provable stability;
2. the flexibility of the HZD formulation for accommo-
dating such heuristics.
In this article, the proposed control strategy is based on
heuristics derived from transverse linearization feedback
Fevre et al. 3

Table 1. Documented disturbance rejection performance of well-

known biped robots reported as terrain slope in degrees or terrain
height change as a percentage of robot leg length.

Robot/model Approach Performance

Spring Flamingo Virtual model 158

fully actuated control Sloped terrain
(Chew et al., 1999)

Atrias Machine 228

underactuated learning Sloped terrain
(Da et al., 2017)

Mike Curved 1.5%

passive feet Finite height Fig. 1. Planar five-link biped robot ERNIE with point feet
(Wisse, 2006) change walking over uneven terrain. Lateral stability is provided by a
carbon fiber boom.
MABEL Stand-alone \5%
underactuated HZD Finite height
(Park et al., 2013) change implements both torso and leg offsets and assesses the
robustness of the velocity decomposition-enhanced control-
Two-link Walker Transverse lin. 6%
ler to a broader range of disturbances, including uneven
underactuated feedback Finite height
(Manchester et al., 2011) control change terrains, and the resulting energetic efficiency in both simu-
lation and experiment.
Atrias Optimization 10% This controller is the first of its kind to make use of the
underactuated for unknown Stochastic
(Griffin and Grizzle, 2017) disturbances terrain
velocity decomposition metric, and this article compares its
performance with that of HZD-based control and transverse
MABEL Finite-state 18% linearization feedback control. The article highlights the
underactuated machine Finite height importance of heuristic control derived from fundamental
(Park et al., 2013) change
control strategies for practical robot applications beyond the
Atrias HZD + terrain 22% simplest walking models. Section 2 presents the two types
underactuated perception Stochastic of disturbances commonly encountered by biped robots in
(Nguyen et al., 2018) terrain the real world and their respective metrics used to assess the
controllers. Section 3 derives the velocity decomposition
control. Previous work has shown that, for an underactu- metric for underactuated, hybrid mechanical systems.
ated biped with a massive, human-like torso, the function- Section 4 presents the three control methods compared in
ality of the optimal control problem could be approximated the article: HZD-based control, transverse linearization
by layering heuristic rules on top of a conventional HZD- feedback control, and velocity decomposition-enhanced
based controller (Post and Schmiedeler, 2014). control. Section 5 tests the controllers for several simulated
Motivated by this approach, this work aims to design walking speeds with a three-link model experiencing differ-
controllers that can mimic the performance of transverse ent magnitudes and timings of velocity disturbance and
linearization feedback control in rejecting disturbances, all multiple levels of terrain height variability. The findings are
while maintaining simplicity of implementation within the validated in experiment using the planar five-link biped
HZD framework so that the control approach can be imple- ERNIE in Section 6. Section 7 states the broader impacts
mented in real-time on more complex bipeds. for the contribution and lists a few limitations for this work.
Whereas earlier work used a feedback on the error in
hip velocity (Post and Schmiedeler, 2014), the proposed 2. Metrics for vanishing and non-vanishing
method herein implements a feedback on the time rate of
change of the uncontrolled velocity, as seen through the
disturbances
velocity decomposition metric (Nightingale et al., 2008). Disturbances can be encountered in two forms: vanishing
The error in the time rate of change of the decomposed and non-vanishing perturbations. Vanishing perturbations
uncontrolled velocity during a gait is one measure of the are unique, one-off events that disturb the system for a
distance to the zero dynamics trajectory, which offers bene- finite amount of time, and examples include velocity distur-
fits in rejecting disturbances in the unactuated DOF(s). bances (an external force accelerates or decelerates the
This approach was introduced in Fevre et al. (2018), robot) and single changes in terrain height. Non-vanishing
where it was shown to improve the velocity disturbance perturbations do not die out with time and have infinite
rejection performance of the five-link biped ERNIE pic- energy in the time domain (Lee et al., 2016). They are often
tured in Figure 1. While that work exclusively implemented stochastic in nature, such as the height and slope changes
a torso offset to reject velocity disturbances, this work associated with uneven terrain. In practice, humans often
4 The International Journal of Robotics Research 00(0)
encounter both types of disturbance, sometimes at the same
time, and low-level feedback controllers must be able to
reject both. As such, the proposed control method should
yield disturbance rejection performance that is consistent
across a wide range of disturbance for it to be a viable
terrain-blind strategy.
Since most notions of stability rely on conservative con-
straints that do not necessarily predict what happens in the
real world, this section describes practical metrics of perfor-
mance for both vanishing and non-vanishing disturbances.
For example, violating friction constraints at some particu-
lar instants of the gait cycle does not necessarily mean that
the robot will fall (Saglam and Byl, 2018). Here, we loosely
define stable walking as the successive repetition of multi-
ple steps (Yang et al., 2009).
If a single, finite velocity disturbance does not drive the
system dynamics out of the basin of attraction, classical
definitions of stability for periodic walking can be applied
to quantify the speed of return to the target motion. Control
performance can be assessed by the maximum magnitude
of the disturbance that can be rejected, as well as the speed
and energetic cost of recovery. The speed of recovery can
be quantified by the time needed to return to within some
bounds of the zero dynamics trajectory or the number of
steps required to return within some limits of the nominal
step velocity. The latter, discrete metric is used throughout
this article for consistency with the comparison of the ener-
getic efficiency of recovery, measured via the specific ener-
getic cost of transport (SCOT). The SCOT is a dimensionless
measure quantifying the (total) energy required to move one
kilogram one meter (Collins et al., 2005). Energetic efficiency
undeniably plays a critical role in legged robotics, so the velo-
city decomposition-enhanced controller should enable gaits
with relatively low SCOT, and the trade-offs between robust-
ness and efficiency are analyzed for each type of disturbance
investigated in this work.
To compare the magnitude of the disturbance that each
controller can reject at different points of the gait cycle, the
state-space region of stability of the unactuated dynamics
is computed numerically. For the point-foot dynamic walk-
ers underactuated by one in this article, this is a two-
dimensional projection of the basin of attraction onto the
unactuated dynamics. Computing the basin of attraction of
complex biped robots can become intractable as more
DOFs are added, which motivates the use of simpler alter-
natives such as the unactuated dynamics.
For the second type of vanishing perturbations, the max-
imum height of a single stair that the robot can surmount
and continue walking is the metric of comparison for the
controllers. Since this measure is inherently related to leg
length, all the changes in terrain height are reported as per-
centages of leg length.
When the biped robot walks on uneven terrain, the per-
sistent disturbances can cause the robot to fall down or
cause the system dynamics to be pushed away from the zero
dynamics. For this work, uneven terrains are modeled using
stairs of varying heights. An equally complex approach to
evaluate the stochastic performance of dynamic walkers is
varying slopes (Byl and Tedrake, 2009; Saglam and Byl,
2018). Here, the change in height Dh on each step is ran-
domly generated from a normal Gaussian distribution
N (m, s), where the average ground height m is set to zero
and the standard deviation of the distribution s loosely cor-
responds to the roughness of the terrain (Bledt et al., 2018).
Therefore, when comparing stochastic performance, the
controller that maintains stability with the higher s will be
referred to as the more robust one. The H2 and H‘ norms
(Fan and Manchester, 2018; Hobbelen and Wisse, 2007)
both assume finite energy and fail to practically predict
when one should expect the robot to fall. The step height
metric is directly observable and can be translated from
simulation to experimental studies, and vice versa.
The mean of first passage time quantifies the expected
time to failure (Byl and Tedrake, 2009). It is not, however,
computationally feasible for complex models of walking
because, based on a Markov chain model, it requires dis-
cretization of the entire state space. The average number of
steps taken before failure for a given level of terrain noise
provides similar information, so it is the metric of the prob-
ability of falling used herein.
In the case of non-vanishing disturbances, when the
dynamics drift around the state space, probability density
functions (PDFs) quantify a controller’s ability to follow the
desired gait. In simulation and experiment, the step velocity
PDF is used to compare the controllers’ ability to maintain
the desired walking speed. Two-dimensional PDFs of the
unactuated dynamics are also used to compute the meta-
stable neighborhoods of state space, which characterize the
behavior and attractiveness of the fixed point of the dyna-
mical system under different controllers in the presence of
stochastic perturbations (Byl and Tedrake, 2009).
3. Mathematical framework
3.1. Hybrid dynamical system
The dynamics of bipedal locomotion can be modeled as a
series of finite-time single support phases and infinitesi-
mally short ground impacts. In single support, the swing
leg moves from behind to in front of the stance leg. A foot
impact transfers support from the stance to the swing leg,
swapping their roles and redirecting the velocity of the
biped’s CoM.
The two biped models in this article consist of three and
five rigid links. More generally, for a planar, left–right sym-
metric biped with n rigid links, single support is modeled using
continuous second-order ordinary differential equations,
_ q)q_ + G(q) = B(q)u
M(q)€q + C(q, ð1Þ
where q = ½q1 , q2 , . . . , qn  2 Q  R is a set of general-
n
ized coordinates that fully defines the position of the biped
in space. M(q) 2 Rn × n is the symmetric inertia matrix,
_ 2 Rn × n is the Coriolis matrix, G(q) 2 Rn is the
C(q, q)
gravity vector, B(q) 2 Rn × m is the actuation matrix
Fevre et al.
mapping actuator torques to joint torques, and u 2 U  Rm
is a vector of independent control inputs. By definition, an
n-dimensional system is underactuated if it has fewer than
n actuators (m\n). The actuation matrix varies based on
the level of actuation of the system. If the biped is underac-
tuated, the rank of the actuation matrix is less than the
number of DOFs, and the system is not full-state feedback
linearizable. The models analyzed herein assume no ankle
actuation, meaning that the angle between the ground and
the stance leg tibia is not directly controlled. All other
joints of the robot are actuated. Hence, for this work,
rank(B(q)) = n  1.
The hypersurface S is a switching set that defines the
limits of the continuous dynamics and relates the general-
ized coordinates q immediately before impact to the state
q+ immediately after impact via the discrete map,
q+ = Dq q , q 2 S
q_ + = Ddq q_  , q 2 S
where Dq is the n × n switching matrix and Ddq is an n × n
matrix relating pre- and post-impact velocities. Here Dq can
be obtained by inspection even with complex kinematic
chains, and Ddq can be derived via conservation of angular
momentum about the point of ground contact (Westervelt
et al., 2007). The two phases of a step result in a hybrid
model for walking, and Equations (1)–(2) form the system’s
full hybrid dynamics.
The guard set of the hypersurface S changes at every
step, and the impact map is applied when
S = fpy : Rn ! R j py = Dh, p_ y \0g
where py and p_ y are the vertical position and velocity of the
swing foot, respectively. Note that Equation (3) still holds
for walking on flat ground (Dh = 0).
For convenience, the hybrid system may be written in
state-space form using coupled first-order differential
equations
( Velocity decomposition is applicable to all underactu-
x_ = f(x) + g(x)u, x 62 S
S:
x = D(x ),
+
x2S
where x = ½qT , q_ T T 2 X  Rn defines the state space and
 
q_
f(x) = 1
 M(q) (C(q, _ _
 q)q + G(q))
0 inputs, termed controlled directions, and directions ortho-
g(x) =
M(q)1 B(q)
A monotonically increasing phase variable u : Q ! R
measures the progression of a step. While several options
are physically valid, this work uses the unactuated angle
between the upright vertical and the stance leg tibia for u.
The monotonic behavior of the phase variable makes it an
ideal candidate to parameterize a set of holonomic con-
straint functions on the m actuated coordinates. A common
5
approach is to choose the constraints to be smooth func-
tions of position only, which for this work are chosen as
Bézier polynomials. The vector of functions
F(u) = (f1 (u), . . . , fm (u))T represents the desired config-
uration of the biped during a given step, and the output
functions are defined as the tracking errors for each actu-
ated DOF,
y = h(q) = qa  F(u) ð6Þ
where qa = (q1 , . . . , qm )T is the vector of actuated
coordinates.
For walking on flat ground, the values of the phase vari-
able at the beginning and end of every step can be written
as u+ and u, respectively. In other words, u+ and u corre-
spond to 0 and 100% of the gait cycle, in which the Bézier
polynomials are well-defined. When the robot is walking
on uneven terrain without ground perception, however, the
ð2Þ phase variable takes on values that are outside of its pre-
defined interval. For this work, both in simulation and
experiment, u was saturated to stay between 0 and 100% of
the gait cycle such that
fi (u) = fi (u ), 8u ø u
ð7Þ
fi (u) = fi (u+ ), 8u ł u+
Although this method is suitable for dealing with modest
changes in terrain height (Dh;5% of leg length), for more
significant stairs, a different method to cope with Bezier
polynomials outside of the (u+ , u ) range should be
developed.
ð3Þ
3.2. Velocity decomposition
This section derives the relevant terms for the proposed
velocity decomposition-enhanced controller. A thorough
derivation of the velocity decomposition metric can be
found elsewhere in the literature (Goodwine and
Nightingale, 2010; Nightingale et al., 2008).
ated mechanical systems that can be described by a
ð4Þ
Lagrangian of the form L(q, q) _ = 12 q_ T M(q)q_  V(q),
1 _T
where 2 q M(q)q_ is the kinetic energy and V(q) is the
potential energy. Inspired by geometric analysis and con-
trol, the velocity decomposition metric uses differential
geometry to partition the equations of motion of an under-
actuated mechanical system into directions aligned with the
ð5Þ
gonal to the inputs with respect to the inertia matrix,
termed uncontrolled directions.
The inverse of the inertia matrix is used to construct an
Morthonormal basis with the linearly independent control
forces F i (i = 1, . . . , m),
M1 F i
Yi = ð8Þ
jjM1 F i jj2M
6 The International Journal of Robotics Research 00(0)

 
The set of vector fields Y = fY1 , . . . , Ym g 2 Rn × m repre- 1 kl ∂Mil ∂Mjl ∂Mij
Gkij = M +  ð12Þ
sents the input distribution of the system, where jjjj2M 2 ∂qj ∂qi ∂ql
denotes the Euclidean norm with respect to M.
The M-orthonormal complement to the input distribu-
n × (nm) 4. Control strategies
tion is represented by Y ? = fY? 1 , . . . , Ynm g 2 R
?

and includes the remaining n  m uncontrolled directions. 4.1. HZD-based control

For mechanical systems underactuated by one, the lone
uncontrolled direction can be found by inspection knowing The method of HZD requires the outputs h(q) 2 Rm in
that hY? , Yi iM = 0, where h, iM represents the inner prod- Equation (6) that represent the tracking errors for each
uct with respect to M. Just like Yi , Y? has unit length with actuated DOF to be smooth functions of position only
respect to M, i.e., hY? , Y? iM = 1. (Westervelt et al., 2007, 2003). Feedback linearization is
Consequently, the M-orthonormal frame fY, Y ? g : = applied to obtain a new system that is input/output linear.
fY1 , . . . , Ym , Y? ? Differentiating the output equation gives
1 , . . . , Ynm g provides an instantaneous
decomposition of the tangent space T Q. As such, the sys-
∂h
tem’s velocities v = ½q_ 1 , . . . , q_ n T can be decomposed as y_ = x_ = Lf h ð13Þ
∂x
v = w1 Y1 +    + wm Ym + s1 Y? ?
1 +    + snm Ynm ð9Þ where Lf represents the Lie derivative with respect to the
vector field f(x) from Equation (5) (Isidori, 2013). The con-
where w and s are the velocities in the controlled and trol input u does not appear in Equation (13), and the output
uncontrolled directions, respectively. Because the basis must be differentiated twice before u does appear explicitly.
fY, Y ? g is normalized with respect to the inertia matrix,
the vector fields represent pure directions on T Q, and w €y = L2f h + Lg Lf h  u ð14Þ
and s correspond to the magnitudes of the controlled and
uncontrolled velocities. where Lg denotes the Lie derivative with respect to the vec-
Enforcing the orthonormality conditions in Equation tor field g(x) from Equation (5). Therefore, the system has
(9), it is trivial to solve for the velocities. The time deriva- relative degree two, and the input of the new system is
tives of the velocities in the controlled directions are not of
interest since they are directly controlled by the inputs. In u = (Lg Lf h)1 (v  L2f h) ð15Þ
contrast, the time rates of change of the uncontrolled velo-
cities are independent of the control inputs and can only be where v is the double integrator, €y = v.
affected by the inputs through the coupling of the system’s For HZD-based control, an appropriate choice for v is a
natural dynamics. high-gain PD feedback, which collapses the dynamics onto
the zero dynamics manifold,
dsb
= wa wp Bap ar ?
1 (Ya , Yp )  wa sr B2 (Ya , Yr ) v = KP y + KD y_ ð16Þ
dt
 sr wp Brp ? rk ? ? b ?
3 (Yr , Yp )  sr sk B4 (Yr , Yk )  B5 (V, Yb ) As a result, the desired trajectories F(u) are perfectly
ð10Þ tracked in the absence of disturbances and modeling errors
in experiments. Although this work uses the method of
where the repeated indices imply summation. The general HZD to control planar biped models only, the formulation
forms of the matrices of scalar coefficients are holds for spatial robots and has been used to design gaits
! and controllers for 3D bipeds (Chevallereau et al., 2009).
∂Ypk i
Bap
1 (Ya , Yp ) = Y + Gkij Yai Ypj Mkl Yb?l
∂qi a
4.2. Transverse linearization feedback control
 ?k 
? ∂Yr Transverse linearization feedback control has some simila-
ar
B2 (Ya , Yr ) = Y + Gij Ya Yr Mkl Yb?l
i k i ?j
∂qi a rities to HZD-based control in its use of virtual holonomic
! constraints that restrict the generalized coordinates
rp ?
∂Ypk ?i (Shiriaev et al., 2005), but it also includes an additional
B3 (Yr , Yp ) = Y + Gij Yr Yp Mkl Yb?l
k ?i j
∂qi r state quantifying the deviation from the zero dynamics tra-
 ?k  jectory (Manchester et al., 2011; Shiriaev et al., 2008). The
? ? ∂Yk ?i k ?i ?j transverse linearization about the desired motion computes
Brk
4 (Y r , Yk ) = Y + G Y Y Mkl Yb?l
∂qi r ij r k
a local change of coordinates x ! (t, x? ), where t can be
∂V ?l seen as the progression of the hyperplane along the orbit
Bb5 (V, Y?
b )= Y ð11Þ and x? represents the dynamics that are transverse to the
∂ql b
orbit (i.e., onto the Poincaré section). This change of vari-
where superscripts indicate the usual tensor notation and G able is useful for underactuated systems, for which the
denotes the Christoffel symbols given by dynamics along the orbit cannot be controlled directly.
Fevre et al.
For mechanical systems underactuated by one, the
dynamics of the unactuated coordinate u are given by the
zero dynamics equation
a(u)€u + b(u)u_ 2 + g(u) = 0
where a(), b(), and g() are given in Appendix B. The
zero dynamics equation has a general integral of motion
h i
R
_ = u_ 2  c(u0 , u) u_ 2  u c(s, u0 ) 2g(s) ds
I(u, u)
n 0 R u0 o a(s)
u b(t)
c(u0 , u) = exp 2 u0 a(t) dt
which preserves its value along the solution, given (u0 , u_ 0 )
are chosen on the target trajectory. This makes I an ideal
candidate for the additional state quantifying deviation from
the desired orbit. Therefore, the complete set of transverse
coordinates becomes x? = ½I, yT , y_ T T . In a small enough
neighborhood of the periodic orbit, the linearization of the
continuous transverse dynamics at time t is given by
z_ = A(t)z(t) + B(t)v(t), t 6¼ tj
where A(  ) and B(  ) are given in Manchester et al.
(2011), and tj, j = 1, 2, . . . , are the times of ground
impacts. The transverse linearization of impacts is given by
z(t+ ) = Fz(t )
where F is given in Shiriaev et al. (2008). Using a periodic
matrix gain K(t) = K(t + T ), the state feedback controller
v = K(t)z
exponentially stabilizes Equation (19) (Shiriaev et al.,
2005), which is equivalent to exponential orbital stabiliza-
tion of Equation (17)
A receding-horizon control strategy can be used to
implement transverse linearization feedback control in real-
time and guarantee orbital stability of the nonlinear system
to the periodic target (x? ! 0). A receding-horizon optimal
control is obtained by computing the transverse lineariza-
tion about the periodic orbit a few steps ahead (Manchester
et al., 2011). The optimal control problem is solved by
minimizing the cost function
Z tf
J (x, u) = ½z(t)T Q(t)z(t) + v(t)T R(t)v(t)dt
ti
Nj
X ð22Þ
T
+ z(tj ) Qj z(tj )
j=1
which is similar to a constrained linear quadratic regulator
(LQR) problem, where Q, R, and Qj are weighting func-
tions on the states, inputs, and step-end positions, respec-
tively. The optimal control is computed by solving the
jump-matrix Riccati equation (JMRE) backward in time
from tf to ti for a constant number of footsteps ahead. The
solution is then used to construct the matrix of gains
7
K(t) = R1 B(t)T P(t), where P(t) is the solution to the
JMRE. A known transformation given in Manchester et al.
(2011) takes the time-based controller gains to state-based
gain scheduling and
ð17Þ
K(u) =  R1 B(u, u)
_ T P(u) ð23Þ
proves to locally exponentially orbitally stabilize the origi-
nal nonlinear system. The complexity of the optimal control
problem, however, has limited its application to point-foot
ð18Þ robots with no more than two DOFs.
4.3. Velocity decomposition-enhanced control
The deviation from the periodic orbit is computed in terms
of the error in the derivative of the decomposed uncon-
trolled velocity ds
dt ,
d(es ) d
= (sref  s) ð24Þ
dt dt
ð19Þ Simulation studies and experimental work showed that
measuring deviations from the periodic orbit throughout the
gait cycle using the novel differential coordinates provides
superior disturbance rejection performance (Fevre et al.,
2018). The idea that the heuristic controller is locally equiv-
ð20Þ alent to transverse linearization feedback control, however,
relies more on simulations and experimental validations,
rather than a well-established proof. For control purposes,
proportional gains define the torso and leg offsets
s)
ð21Þ Toffset = KT d(e
dt
s)
ð25Þ
Loffset = KL d(e
dt
The change in the desired torso pitch angle, Toffset , pri-
marily affects the gravity contribution to dsdt . In a decelera-
tion case, the error is positive, so the positive Toffset shifts
the biped’s CoM forward to regain momentum. In an accel-
eration case, the reverse applies, as the negative torso offset
shifts the CoM backward to reduce momentum. Similarly,
the change in the desired swing leg angle, Loffset , acts to
swing the leg forward in a deceleration case and acts to drag
the leg in an acceleration case.
The offsets are layered on top of the hi (u) output func-
tions of the HZD-based controller from Section 4.1. The
heuristics were derived from the three-link biped model
shown in Figure 2, which is identical to that in Westervelt
et al. (2007), where q1 and q2 are actuated and q3 is unac-
tuated. The legs each have a length of 1 m and a 5 kg point
mass halfway between the foot and hip. There is a 15 kg
point mass at the hip, in addition to the 10 kg point mass at
the tip of the torso, which is 0.5 m long. The resulting con-
trol law for the velocity decomposition-enhanced controller
becomes
 
q1  (f1 (u) + Toffset )
h(q) = ð26Þ
q2  (f2 (u) + Loffset )
8 The International Journal of Robotics Research 00(0)
which is equivalent to the HZD-based control formulation
when Toffset and Loffset are 0. As the heuristics are added to
the HZD-based control formulation, the enhanced control-
ler uses the same phase variable as HZD-based control.
Moreover, although the heuristics derived for this work
enhance the robustness of conventional HZD-based control
to disturbances in the sagittal plane, the approach itself is
not limited to planar applications.
One drawback is that, unlike pure HZD-based control,
the enhanced controller does not guarantee asymptotic sta-
bility to the nominal periodic orbit. Provable stability is not
s)
retained since, following a disturbance, the non-zero d(e dt
will modify the desired trajectories and cause the torso and
swing leg positions at impact to differ. This strategy is ana-
logous to that from Buss et al. (2014), where an offset is
employed to bias the torso forward or backward and regu-
late the walking speed of MARLO. In contrast, the velocity
decomposition-enhanced controller primarily aims to
enhance the robustness of practical underactuated biped
robots by approximating the functionality of transverse lin-
earization feedback control and retaining HZD’s simplicity
of implementation. Asymptotic stability is maintained in a
step-to-step manner in practice (Buss et al., 2014).
5. Simulation studies
5.1. Three-link model
The simulated three-link model is shown in Figure 2.
Torque limits were enforced to ensure realistic findings:
U = fu 2 R2 jjuj ł 160 N  mg. A 0.75 m/s walking gait
was generated using constrained numerical optimization to
find the 16 coefficients defining the two seventh-order
Bézier polynomials f1 (u) and f2 (u) for the actuated DOFs.
MATLAB’s fmincon function was used to minimize the
SCOT,
P2 R tf
i = 1 ti jui q
_ i jdt
J=  ð27Þ
xH mtotal g
where the integral includes both the positive and negative
mechanical work done by each actuator and represents the
total energy consumed by the system over a step. The dif-
ference tf  ti is the step duration, x H is the step length,
and mtotal is the biped’s total mass (35 kg). As mentioned in
Section 2, the unitless SCOT quantifies the energy expendi-
ture per unit weight and unit distance.
The proposed velocity decomposition-enhanced control-
ler was compared with a conventional HZD-based control-
ler and transverse linearization feedback control. The
receding-horizon strategy was chosen to implement trans-
verse linearization feedback control (Manchester et al.,
2011). Limiting the planned footsteps to a periodic motion
permits calculating the JMRE offline. A six-step horizon
was selected because, after integrating the JMRE using
MATLAB’s ode45, the sum of the absolute difference
between the states at the end of steps 5 and 6 was 3 × 107 ,
Fig. 2. Three-link biped model used in simulation. Here q1 and
q2 are actuated, whereas q3 is unactuated. From the definition of
the phase variable, u = q3 + q1  p. A representative step on
uneven terrain is shown on the right. The stance leg is red and
the swing leg is blue. Toe-scuffing was ignored in simulation.
indicating sufficient periodicity. The solution P(t) was
stored, and the periodic gains for the controller were inter-
polated in real-time.
The performance criterion used for tuning the weights
was the speed of return to steady state following a velocity
disturbance, quantified by the number of steps taken to
return within 2% of steady-state step velocity. Here R(t)
and Qj were chosen as identity matrices, as in Manchester
et al. (2011), whereas Q(t) was chosen as diag([350 1 100
1 100]) for x? = ½I, y1 , y2 , y_ 1 , y_ 2 T. Because I, y1 , and y_ 1
have similar relative magnitudes during a given gait, the
weights suggest that making tracking of I more important
improves the speed of return to steady state when the robot
is pushed off the periodic orbit. Therefore, increasing the
relative importance of the feedback on the error of the dis-
tance to the zero dynamics trajectory facilitates desirable
behavior. Decreasing the weights on y2 and y_ 2 resulted in
the swing leg kicking very fast and high when encounter-
ing increases in terrain height, which eventually reduced its
stochastic performance and would also not be practical on
an actual robot. Reducing the torque limits reduced this
kicking effect, but resulted in a downward shift of the target
trajectory and the robot not converging to the desired step
velocity. Thus, weights of 100 on y2 and y_ 2 represent a
compromise.
For the velocity decomposition-enhanced controller, the
KT and KL gains were tuned to 0.122 and 0.138, respec-
tively, to also optimize the number of steps needed to return
to within 2% of steady-state step velocity following a velo-
city disturbance. Given that the direction of the input vector
s)
field fY1 , Y2 g (defined in Section 3.2) used to derive d(e dt
changes throughout the gait, constant values for KT and KL,
in fact, correspond to time-varying gains for HZD-based
control, for which the direction of the input vector field is
constant.
One important and desirable characteristic for a robust
fast time-scale control system used for blind walking is that
the gains or weights should have relatively low sensitivity
to the type, magnitude, and timing of the disturbance.
Taking the transverse linearization feedback controller and
Fevre et al.
Table 2. Simulated SCOT versus gait speed for curved and
point-foot gaits.
Gait speed (m/s) Point-foot SCOT Curved-foot SCOT
0.60 0.147 0.072
0.65 0.147 0.073
0.70 0.148 0.074
0.75 0.150 0.076
0.80 0.155 0.078
0.85 0.164 0.081
0.90 0.178 0.085
the velocity decomposition-enhanced controller for exam-
ple, one can tune the weights and gains for single, finite
velocity disturbances to optimize the speed of return to
steady state and optimize them separately for stochastic
disturbances to maximize the number of steps taken before
failure. Without a terrain preview, however, the same con-
troller must be robust to a variety of disturbances.
Therefore, the weights and gains were held constant
throughout the article to show that both approaches are
insensitive to the type of the disturbance that creates devia-
tions from the target orbit. However, it is possible that tun-
ing the gains for stochastic perturbations would improve
the controller’s performance. Managing the trade-offs
between tuning for velocity disturbances and for uneven
terrain has the potential to yield superior results than what
is reported herein and is a topic of future research.
5.2. Vanishing perturbations
5.2.1. Velocity disturbances. Velocity disturbances were
analyzed in Fevre et al. (2018, 2019) with the results
briefly summarized in the following. In the deceleration
case, velocity decomposition-enhanced control and trans-
verse linearization feedback control returned the robot to
within 2% of the steady-state step velocity in 2.6 and 2.4
steps on average, respectively, while the HZD-based con-
troller did so in 5.3 steps. The results for acceleration dis-
turbances were consistent, as well as for the different
walking speeds studied (0.60–0.90 m/s). The steady-state
SCOT for the gaits investigated are reported in Table 2. At
steady state, d(e s) _ length. One hundred such terrains, each consisting of
dt = I(u, u) = 0, and the SCOT is identical
for the three control strategies.
The velocity decomposition-enhanced controller was
also implemented on a three-link biped model with curved
feet, which considerably reduced the energetic cost of walk-
ing relative to the point-foot case (Fevre et al., 2019). The
velocity disturbance rejection performance of the velocity
decomposition-enhanced controller on the curved-foot
model was consistent with the point-foot model, and
switching from one model to the other did not require re-
tuning the controller gains. Moreover, the complexity of the
proposed control strategy remains the same with the addi-
tion of curved feet (Fevre et al., 2019), which is another
9
Table 3. Maximum height of a single stair that the robot could
clear for each control strategy.
HZD Vel Dec TLFC
s (8) 1.555 1.830 1.905
Dh ð%Þ 2.1 2.5 2.6
desirable aspect of low-level feedback controllers for exten-
sion to more complex biped robots.
5.2.2. Uneven terrain. For uneven terrain, the vanishing
perturbation considered was the maximum height of a sin-
gle stair that the robot could clear and return to steady state
in finite time. The results for the 0.75 m/s point-foot gait
are reported in Table 3, where s indicates the noise level in
degrees and the height of the step Dh is reported both in
centimeters and as a percentage of leg length. In simula-
tion, velocity decomposition-enhanced control and trans-
verse linearization feedback control were able to clear
stairs that were 2.5% and 2.6% of the robot’s leg length,
respectively, whereas HZD-based control only cleared stairs
up to 2.1%. The means of failure was identical for all three
control methods for their respective noise level: the robot
fell backward. In general, biped robots with locked knees,
such as the compass-gait walker and the three-link biped
model used herein, should perform poorly on uneven ter-
rain. The heights reported in this section are consistent with
those cleared in Manchester et al. (2011) and Fan and
Manchester (2018). The more important finding here is
that the velocity decomposition-enhanced controller returns
nearly identical performance to transverse linearization
feedback control without extensive tuning, which motivates
practical implementation.
5.3. Non-vanishing disturbances
In simulation, changes in terrain height were randomly
drawn from a normal Gaussian distribution as
Dh;N (m, s), where the standard deviation of the distribu-
tion s represents the noise level or roughness of the terrain
in degrees (8) and was kept in the range of 2–3% of leg
25,000 steps, were generated for different levels of terrain
noise with mean value m = 0 and roughness ranging from
s = 0:88 to s = 2:58 in 0.058 increments. Figure 3 shows
the Gaussian model of the ground using the PDF given by
1 (Dhm)2
f (Dh, N (m, s)) = pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi e 2s2 ð28Þ
2ps2
For levels of noise below 0:88, the robot successfully
completed every terrain regardless of the control strategy
employed. For higher levels of noise, however, the robot
was guaranteed to fall with probability 1 as t ! ‘, starting
with the HZD-based controller at 0:88. At this stage, the
10 The International Journal of Robotics Research 00(0)

Fig. 3. Normal Gaussian distribution for the change in terrain

height per step in simulation.

average number of steps taken before failure effectively Fig. 4. Simulated number of steps taken before failure for
measures the stochastic performance of each controller. different levels of terrain noise. The circles represent the average
Once again, the 0.75 m/s point-foot gait was evaluated over for each controller, and the funnels are drawn using the standard
each of the 100 terrain profiles for each noise level. The deviation (peak-to-peak = 1 standard deviation).
three-link model started each trial at steady state and ended
after completing the 25,000 steps or falling down. The
results are summarized in Figure 4, and a side-by-side video
comparison of HZD-based control and velocity decomposi-
tion-enhanced control is given in Extension 1. HZD-based
control reached the 25,000 step milestone 100 times in a
row for s = 0:858, whereas velocity decomposition-
enhanced control and transverse linearization feedback con-
trol did so for s = 1:558 and s = 1:808, respectively. This
corresponds to the controllers successfully completing
2,500,000 steps in a row on a random terrain at their respec-
tive noise levels.
Next, the controllers’ ability to maintain a desired walk-
ing speed was assessed using the step velocity PDF for 100
terrains, each consisting of 30 steps for s = 0:808. This Fig. 5. Step velocity PDF of 3,000 steps when terrain height
level of noise permitted the controllers to complete each noise s = 0:88 using the 0.75 m/s point-foot gait.
trial and keep the states within the regions of stability. The
robot once again started each simulation on the zero Table 4. Step velocity distribution and SCOT for 3,000 steps
dynamics trajectory, and kinematic data for all 3,000 steps when s = 0:808. The step velocity PDF is shown in Figure 5. The
were recorded. The step velocity PDF was computed for design speed is 0.75 m/s.
each controller and is reported in Figure 5, which shows
HZD Vel Dec TLFC
that velocity decomposition-enhanced control was able to
better maintain walking at the design speed than HZD- Step velocity (m/s) 0.73 6 0.07 0.74 6 0.05 0.74 6 0.04
based control. Transverse linearization feedback control, SCOT 0.150 0.151 0.148
however, outperformed both control strategies. Energetic t 1, max (Nm) 152.7 153.9 151.5
efficiency measures are also reported in Table 4. The t 2, max (Nm) 105.0 106.7 105.6
SCOT and the peak torques were similar for all three con-
trollers, so the enhanced robustness did not come at the
expense of efficiency for the latter two controllers. and 99% of the data for the 3,000 steps (Figure 6). If the
The attractiveness of a two-link walker’s fixed point at three-link model has not fallen as t ! ‘, the states will most
impact was shown to have a positive effect on the perfor- likely be in those regions as they represent the regions of the
mance of the biped on stochastic terrain (Byl and Tedrake, state space into which the biped is being pulled. The approach
2009). While the stability of a fixed point can be assessed is analogous to computing the PDF in two dimensions.
for periodic walking, the fixed point’s attractiveness at The top graph in Figure 6 corresponds to HZD-based
impact for uneven terrain can be measured by computing control, whereas the middle and bottom graphs correspond
metastable neighborhoods of the state space that the to the velocity decomposition-enhanced controller and
dynamics visit more or less often. The metastable neigh- transverse linearization feedback control, respectively.
borhoods of (u, u) _ were computed to capture 50%, 90%, Because the stochastic performances of velocity
Fevre et al. 11

Table 5. Geometric and mass parameters of five-link biped

ERNIE.

Length CoMy Mass Inertia

(m) (m) (kg) (kgm2)

Torso 0.279 0.132 14.47 0.100

Femur 0.360 0.125 1.47 0.024
Tibia 0.378 0.136 1.07 0.024
Boom 2.887 - 3.14 (7.250)
Center support - - - 4.480
Reflected rotor inertia - - - 0.173
y
The center of mass (CoM) location is measured from the proximal joint.

The inertia is measured about the CoM.

Fig. 6. Metastable neighborhoods of (u, u) _ at impact for

s = 0:808 for HZD-based control (top), velocity decomposition-
enhanced control (middle), and transverse linearization feedback
control (bottom). The bottom two figures show strong
attractiveness of the fixed points around their respective stable
regions. The top figure indicates a larger excursion of HZD-
based control in the state space, meaning that a fall is more likely.

Fig. 7. Five-link model used to derive the velocity

decomposition-enhanced control and transverse lineariza-
tion feedback control are better than that of HZD-based
control (see Figure 4), it is not surprising that their meta-
stable regions around the fixed point are tighter, indicating
_ contours of HZD-based
stronger attractiveness. The (u, u)
control highlight larger excursions in the state space, mean-
ing that a fall is more likely.
6. Experimental validation
6.1. Experimental apparatus
The velocity decomposition-enhanced controller was
applied to the planar five-link biped ERNIE shown in
Figure 1, whose geometric and mass parameters are listed
in Table 5. ERNIE has a massive torso, modular legs with
knees and interchangeable feet, and point feet were used
in experiment. The angle convention (positive counter-
clockwise) is as shown in Figure 7. ERNIE has four actua-
tors, one for each hip and knee, so q1 , q2 , q3 , and q4 can be
directly controlled. The actuators were placed in the torso
to keep the legs, made of carbon fiber, lightweight. Four
combinations of brushless DC motors and gearheads drive
the controlled joints via steel cable-pulleys. Motor and
decomposition equations for implementation on ERNIE. The
coordinates q1 –q4 are actuated, and the unactuated angle is q5 .
torso encoders are used to provide reliable sensing, and
force sensitive resistors in each leg detect ground contact.
A closed-loop control rate of 500 Hz was achieved with
the velocity decomposition-enhanced controller, which is
twice the control rate used in previous experiments with
ERNIE (Brown and Schmiedeler, 2016; Post and
Schmiedeler, 2014). Because the authors were not able to
successfully implement transverse linearization feedback
control on the experimental platform, only HZD-based
control and velocity decomposition-enhanced control were
assessed in the experiments. Discussions with the first
author of Manchester et al. (2011) are ongoing in order to
determine what can be done to implement the optimal con-
trol law on a robot as complex as the 5-DOF ERNIE.
6.2. Steady-state walking
The steady-state performances of HZD-based control and
velocity decomposition-enhanced control were also ana-
lyzed using the standard deviation of step velocity for
12 The International Journal of Robotics Research 00(0)

Table 6. SCOT, peak torques, and number of steps required to

return to steady state following a deceleration disturbance.

Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3 Mean

Steps to HZD 9 9 9 9
steady state Vel Dec 5 5 6 5.3

Peak torques HZD 66.3 63.5 64.7 64.8

(Nm) Vel Dec 54.5 61.0 58.1 57.9

SCOT HZD 0.388 0.402 0.404 0.398

Vel Dec 0.409 0.424 0.424 0.419

Fig. 8. Experimental SCOT values versus step velocity for HZD-

based control and velocity decomposition-enhanced control. of ;0.4 remains low for a biped robot and is consistent
with other point-foot dynamic walkers.

approximately 600 steps (Fevre et al., 2018). The velocity
decomposition-enhanced controller had reduced variance
in step velocity for the undisturbed experiments, showing
that the proposed control method produced more consistent
steady-state walking and dealt with model uncertainties
better than HZD-based control.
Because the heuristic rules are layered on top of the
HZD-based formulation, velocity decomposition-enhanced
control is identical to HZD-based control when the error in
ds
dt is zero at steady state. This is true in simulation (Table 2)
and almost true in experiment given a low noise level.
More steady-state experiments were conducted (in addition
to those from Fevre et al. (2018)) using slower and faster
gaits to verify that velocity decomposition-enhanced con-
trol did not expend more energy when regulating the error
in ds
dt . The SCOT of both controllers is plotted as a function
of step velocity in Figure 8, which shows that the energetic
efficiency of HZD-based control is retained under velocity
decomposition-enhanced control despite measurement
errors.
6.3. Vanishing perturbations
6.3.1. Velocity disturbances. The velocity disturbance
experiments reported in Fevre et al. (2018) implemented
perturbations repeatedly using a barrier that would hit the
distal end of the boom and decelerate the robot. The results
are summarized in Table 6. The experimental results vali-
date the simulation findings, showing that the proposed
formulation improved the robot’s ability to reject a velocity
disturbance in experiment, just as in simulation. Note that,
in experiment, the velocity disturbance was not a true
impulse as in simulation. The SCOT reported in Table 6
corresponds to the average SCOT of all the steps between
the time of the disturbance and the time of return to steady
state. As expected, the SCOT to return to steady state in 9
steps for the HZD-based controller was lower than for the
velocity decomposition-enhanced controller that returned
to steady state nearly twice as fast, in 9 steps. Yet, a SCOT
6.3.2. Uneven terrain. The controllers were compared in
terms of the maximum height of a single wooden stair that
the robot could surmount. To be considered a successful
trial, the robot must have been able to return to steady state
following the disturbance. This disturbance was considered
a vanishing perturbation because it was modeled as a single
elevated stair such that the next step involved a return to
the standard terrain height. Because the robot has no terrain
preview to adjust the swing leg trajectory and avoid obsta-
cles, the steps were positioned in the room to avoid toe-
scuffing such that the robot’s swing foot would clear the
step and impact the top surface of the step. Mathematically,
this is equivalent to
Dh = Lt (cos(q1 + q3 + q5 ) + cos(q2 + q4 + q5 ))
ð29Þ
+ Lf (cos(q1 + q5 ) + cos(q2 + q5 ))
always being true at impact, where Lt and Lf are the lengths
of the tibia and femur, respectively. Equation (29) corre-
sponds to the hypersurface condition of Equation (3) for
ERNIE. When this condition is met, the instantaneous
transfer of support occurs, and the next step is initiated.
Figure 7 illustrates this idea.
For all experiments, a 0.70 m/s point-foot gait optimized
for SCOT from Brown and Schmiedeler (2016) was used.
This is the gait used with ERNIE in Fevre et al. (2018), for
which the robot walked reliably. Velocity decomposition-
enhanced control was able to clear stairs that were 5.2% of
the robot’s leg length three times in a row, whereas HZD-
based control only cleared stairs up to 3.8% three times in
a row. Thus, the proposed control method improved the
disturbance rejection performance to both types of vanish-
ing perturbations considered in experiment: velocity distur-
bances and walking on uneven terrain.
6.4. Non-vanishing perturbations
To compare the stochastic performance of the controllers
experimentally, terrains of variable heights were
Fevre et al. 13

constructed by stacking wooden steps as shown in Figure

1. Before the first wooden step, the robot settled to steady
state walking such that each trial had an average step velo-
city within 0.05 m/s of the others, which allowed for fair
comparisons among controllers. The robot was tested six
times for each terrain, three times using HZD-based control
and three times using the velocity decomposition-enhanced
controller.
The first five terrains tested in experiments are qualita-
tively shown in Figure 9. The steps were placed such that
the robot did not have the ability to return to steady state
before the next disturbance was encountered. The table
below each terrain labels each step and shows the change
in height for each step as a percentage of leg length. Both
HZD-based control and velocity decomposition-enhanced
control were able to successfully finish their three trials on
terrains 1 and 2. On terrain 3, HZD-based control stalled
on the third step during all three trials, whereas velocity
decomposition-enhanced control finished each trial.
Neither controller was able to complete terrain 4, but velo-
city decomposition-enhanced control cleared four steps,
which was one more than HZD-based control, which
stalled on step 3. On terrain 5, velocity decomposition-
enhanced control was able to finish all three trials, whereas
HZD-based control stalled on the fourth step in each trial.
The results are summarized in Table 6. A side-by-side
video comparison of HZD-based control and velocity
decomposition-enhanced control is given in Extension 2
and also summarizes the results for terrains 1–5. Fig. 9. Terrains 1–5 tested in experiment. The height of each
The next two terrains consisted of 20 steps spread over a step is scaled to the biped’s height. HZD-based control and
longer distance. The robot went up one step, walked down velocity decomposition-enhanced control were both tested three
on the level ground for one step, and then experienced a times on each terrain. The steps are labeled under each schematic
change in height again. A single step on flat ground as well as the step change in height with respect to the previous
was not enough for the robot to return to steady state before step as a percentage of ERNIE’s leg length.
the next change in terrain height was encountered, so the
disturbances were considered non-vanishing. Using this
setup, the robot had to clear a change in height on both Both controllers successfully finished their three trials on
inner and outer steps alternatingly. The terrains are shown terrain 6. HZD-based control failed on two attempts on ter-
in Figure 10. Terrain 7 is analogous to terrain 6, but the rain 7 and finished the trial only once, whereas velocity
wooden steps were raised higher to increase the challenge. decomposition-enhanced control finished all three trials on

Fig. 10. The steps were placed such that the robot did not have the ability to return to steady state before the next disturbance was
encountered. Terrains 6 and 7 are qualitatively similar, but the stochasticity of the terrain was increased for terrain 7.
14 The International Journal of Robotics Research 00(0)

Table 7. A checkmark ü indicates that the robot successfully

completed the trial. Otherwise, the step number on which the
robot stalled is indicated.

Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3

Terrain HZD Vel Dec HZD Vel Dec HZD Vel Dec

1 ü ü ü ü ü ü
2 ü ü ü ü ü ü
3 3 ü 3 ü 3 ü
4 3 4 3 4 3 4
5 4 ü 4 ü 4 ü

Finished
trials 2 4 2 4 2 4 Fig. 11. Step velocity PDF of 160 inside steps for modest
changes in terrain heights using a 0.70 m/s point-foot gait.

Table 9. Distribution of step velocity and energetic efficiency

measures for the pseudo-random terrain. The results are averaged
Table 8. A checkmark ü indicates that the robot successfully for approximately 160 inside steps. The 6 sign indicates the
completed the trial. Otherwise, the step number on which the standard deviation for each metric. The design speed for this gait
robot stalled is indicated. is 0.70 m/s.
HZD Vel Dec HZD Vel Dec
Trial 1 2 3 1 2 3
SCOT 0.440 6 0.046 0.491 6 0.051
PN = 4 Ð tf
Terrain 6 ü ü ü ü ü ü 2
i = 1 ti k t i (t) k2 dt
510.9 6 49.4 592.9 6 55.4
Terrain 7 1 ü 1 ü ü ü Peak torques (Nm) 57.9 6 19.3 61.4 6 18.2
Finished trials 4 6 Step velocity (m/s) 0.67 6 0.07 0.72 6 0.05

terrain 7. The experiments were also recorded and provided

herein as Extension 3. Table 7 summarizes the results.
A pseudo-random terrain was generated by throwing
both wooden steps and softer mats onto the circular walk-
way. The height changes were intentionally kept small such
that both controllers would successfully walk over a variety
of modest terrain height changes and reject the perturba-
tions arising from the stochastic nature of the terrain. Here,
the controllers were compared based on how well they
maintained the designed gait profile as seen through the
step velocity around the room. This is similar to the
approach taken in simulation with results reported in
Figure 5 and Table 3. Only one trial for each controller was
conducted, which consisted of approximately 320 steps.
There being inside–outside leg asymmetry, only results for
the inside steps are reported herein as the outside step data
are qualitatively similar. Table 8 summarizes the results,
and the step velocity PDF is shown in Figure 11, which
indicates that the velocity decomposition-enhanced control-
ler allowed the robot to follow the desired step velocity
more closely than HZD-based. A video of the experiments
on the pseudo-random terrain is given in Extension 4.
The average SCOT of the velocity decomposition-enhanced
controller increased in comparison to the HZD-based control-
ler, which can be explained by the following two factors.
1. The step velocity for the velocity decomposition-
enhanced controller was 0.05 m/s faster on average
than that of the HZD-based controller, and the SCOT
increases with step velocity (Figure 8).
2. The velocity decomposition-enhanced controller
expends more energy to restrict the dynamics around
the fixed point. Although this enhanced robustness
came at the cost of an increase of the SCOT, this range
of SCOT remains small in comparison with most
humanoid robots that walk with ankle-actuated feet.
7. Discussion and conclusions
This article derived a new control law from the velocity
decomposition metric to enhance traditional HZD-based
control. The control law was implemented both in simula-
tion on a three-link model and in experiment on a five-link
planar biped. The control method aims to mimic transverse
linearization feedback control in a way that is computation-
ally feasible for practical implementation on complex
bipeds. Vanishing perturbation cases included finite velo-
city disturbances and a single change in terrain height.
Velocity decomposition-enhanced control outperformed
HZD-based control and returned nearly identical perfor-
mance to transverse linearization feedback control when
considering speed of return to steady state following velo-
city disturbances. The results for the single change in ter-
rain height were similar.
Fevre et al.
Non-vanishing perturbation cases involved walking on
uneven terrain. The velocity decomposition-enhanced con-
troller clearly outperformed HZD-based control and closely
approximated transverse linearization feedback control in
terms of the number of steps taken before failure in simula-
tion. The experimental results were consistent with the
simulations except that, owing to the complexity of the
optimal control problem, transverse linearization feedback
control could not be implemented on the five-link biped.
Whereas earlier work by the authors tracked the error in
hip velocity (equivalent to the unactuated velocity u_ in con-
ventional coordinates) to compute the heuristics, this work
uses novel coordinates inspired by differential geometry to
implement a feedback on ds dt and increase the robustness of
underactuated biped robots to disturbances in their unactu-
ated DOFs. Previous work showed that measuring devia-
tions from the zero dynamics trajectory using dsdt as opposed
to u_ provides superior robustness and faster return to steady
state, which can be explained in part by two factors.
s)
1. A simple proportional feedback on d(e
dt corresponds to
a time-varying controller with state-based gain sche-
duling since the direction of the input vector field
changes throughout the gait (Section 5.1).
2. The time-varying controller resembles the gain
scheduling method employed by transverse lineariza-
tion feedback control to guarantee orbital stability
(Section 4.2).
7.1. Broader applications
In addition to providing a powerful analytical tool for
designing dynamic walking gaits and controllers, the
method of HZD has also been extended to the design of
running motions. HZD-based control was later extended to
allow for periods of multi-contact, making the formulation
not only applicable to underactuated systems but to fully
actuated humanoid robots with flat feet as well (Hereid
et al., 2016). Another area of research in which HZD has
contributed is that of robotic rehabilitation. Recent applica-
tions employed the method for controlling an exoskeleton
for paraplegic individuals (Gurriet et al., 2018) and for
developing lower-limb powered prostheses in human–robot
shared control (Martin and Gregg, 2017). As such,
by augmenting the disturbance rejection performance
of conventional HZD-based control, the velocity
decomposition-enhanced controller has the potential to
increase the practicality of a wide class of biped robots.
One advantage of the proposed approach is that the
velocity decomposition metric is very general in that it
applies to any underactuated mechanical system that can be
described by Lagrange’s equations. Section 3.2 highlights
that the decomposition holds for mechanical systems with
several degrees of underactuation, a phenomenon intro-
duced by walking in 3D and flight phases in planar running
gaits. The HZD formulation was also expanded to spatial
15
bipeds, and the approach was used to produce highly
dynamic walking motions in three dimensions. Therefore,
although the velocity decomposition-enhanced controller
was not tested on spatial bipeds, the approach is not limited
to planar robots since the formulation is, at its core, an
HZD-based controller. Moreover, since transverse lineariza-
tion feedback control is applicable to several degrees of
underactuation (Shiriaev et al., 2010), additional heuristic
rules can be derived to improve disturbance rejection per-
formance in the frontal plane for improved lateral
stabilization.
The robustness of the velocity decomposition-enhanced
controller to a wide range of disturbance also motivates the
need for deriving simple heuristics from formal control
methods for practical applications on realistic bipeds. In
comparison with control strategies that rely on quasi-static
stability principles, the proposed method enables dynamic
human-like gaits with relatively low SCOT within the HZD
framework and improves their robustness to bridge the gap
between robust bipedal locomotion and energetic effi-
ciency. While terrain perception must become a necessity
for biped robots to achieve their envisioned potential in
today’s society, the proposed terrain-blind control strategy
replicates the worst-case scenario by simulating long-term
tasks in which sensing errors and/or reported changes in
terrain heights accumulate to 5% of the robot’s leg length.
7.2. Limitations due to low coupling
It is clear from Equation (10) that the control inputs do not
appear in the derivative of the decomposed uncontrolled
velocity s. Thus, the only way the control can influence the
uncontrolled dynamics is through the coupling terms. The
expression for how s changes with time provides an analy-
tical measure of the dynamic coupling between the con-
trolled and uncontrolled velocities. The practical
implication is that the measure of coupling quantifies the
instantaneous control authority over the unactuated DOFs.
Multiplying a w2 term, the B1 coefficients quantify how
much the controlled velocities can directly affect the rate of
change of the uncontrolled velocity. The B2 and B3 terms
give a measure of the nonlinear coupling between the con-
trolled and uncontrolled velocities since they multiply both
w and s. The B4 coefficients multiply an s2 term, so these
terms are independent of the control inputs. Similarly, the
B5 term represents the gravity contribution to the rate of
change of the uncontrolled velocities.
When no coupling is available, the control inputs cannot
help reject external disturbances in the uncontrolled DOFs
until the system moves away from the dynamic singularity
and into a configuration in which there is coupling.
Conversely, when the instantaneous, relative amount of
coupling is strong, robustness to disturbances in the uncon-
trolled DOFs is higher. In the case of robotic bipedal loco-
motion, however, high-bandwidth control is necessary to
achieve highly dynamic motions, and waiting for the robot
to move away from a dynamic singularity is not viable.
16
Previous work, however, suggests that the amount of cou-
pling in most walking motions is low for underactuated
biped robots (Chen et al., 2017)
Consequently, the error in ds
dt is mainly affected by
changes in the terms that are independent of the control
input(s), and correcting errors in the uncontrolled velocity
(or velocities) using the coupling terms alone becomes a
challenging task. As such, the feedback on the error in dsdt ,
and in general, the practicality of underactuated biped
robots, suffer from a lack of control authority, as seen
through the coupling terms. Increasing the amount of cou-
pling during the gait design process, however, helps solve
this issue. Indeed, ongoing research by the authors suggests
that optimizing the coupling in bipedal gaits enlarges their
regions of attraction and improves their stochastic perfor-
mances. The results reported herein also highlight the need
for more formal ways of implementing control laws that
make use of velocity decomposition for underactuated
mechanical systems, which becomes possible when bipedal
gaits are designed with increasing coupling.
Funding
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation
(grant number IIS-1527393).
ORCID iD
Martin Fevre https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4238-5450
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