Bioinspired and Energy-Efficient Convex Model Predictive Control for a Quadruped Robot

Abstract

Animal running has been studied for a long time, but until now robots cannot repeat the same movements with energy efficiency close to animals. There are many controllers for controlling the movement of four-legged robots. One of the most popular is the convex MPC. This paper presents a bioinspirational approach to increasing the energy efficiency of the state-of-the-art convex MPC controller. This approach is to set a reference trajectory for the convex MPC in the form of an SLIP model, which describes the movements of animals when running. Adding an SLIP trajectory increases the energy efficiency of the Pronk gait by 15 percent over a range of speed from 0.75 m/s to 1.75 m/s.