An Emergent Control of Gait Patterns of Legged Locomotion Robots

Abstract

This paper deals with control system of legged locomotion robots based on the Central Pattern Generator (C.P.G.) principle. The controller is composed of a leg motion controllers and a gait pattern controller. The leg motion controller drive all the joint actuators of the legs so as to realize the desired motion generated by the gait pattern controller. The gait pattern controller is composed of the oscillators assigned to each leg. The controller tunes the phases of the oscillators by the feedback signals from the touch sensors at the tips of the legs, and is able to adapt to a changing environment emerges. On the other hand, the controller does not depend on the detailed model of the robot, and so can be widely applied to various types of legged locomotion robot. By applying the proposed controller to two types of legged locomotion robot, quadruped locomotion robot and tenlegged locomotion robot, the merits of the controller are demonstrated numerically.