Feedforward control for underactuated bipedal walking on varying compliant slopes

Abstract

In this paper, a feedforward control strategy is proposed to enable stable underactuated bipedal walking on varying compliant slopes with a known inclination angle, to handle the variation in natural environments. First, spring–damper units were employed in the horizontal and vertical directions to model the compliant ground, which is described as a rigid kinematic chain coupled with a spring–damper system. Second, a new definition of stable underactuated bipedal walking, based on walking speed, was proposed. Stable walking is achieved by adjusting the velocity of the biped’s center of mass (CoM) within limits that have been proven to allow at least one walking cycle. The proposed feedforward control strategy was based on the motion state of a robot’s CoM, using the new definition of stability and inspired by the gait characteristics of human walking on varying slopes. Speed control is realized by adjusting the displacement of the CoM with the change of slope to achieve stable walking. Finally, simulations were conducted to validate the proposed controller. The simulation results demonstrate that stable walking is achieved on varying compliant slopes by implementing the proposed control strategy.