Implementing dog-like quadruped robot turning motion based on key movement joints extraction

Abstract

For biomimetic robots to be used in the real world, it is very important to have animal-like turning motion. Excellent turning ability can help quadruped robots navigate more complex obstacle terrain. To solve this problem, we conducted the corresponding study by collecting multiple sets of data on different movements of Marinua dogs. First, we extracted the key movement joints of dogs and captured the motion trajectories of the key joints by a reduced order model. Then, on the basis of systematic analysis and mathematical modeling of the experimental dog’s turning motion, we propose an N-step turning strategy to enable the quadruped robot to realize a wide range of multi-angle movements. Meanwhile, based on the extracted joint trajectory and considering the influence of the actual turning speed, radius and stability of the quadruped robot, the more reasonable biomimetic turning trajectory is obtained through optimization. In terms of motion control, we propose a virtual spine control method to realize turning motion, and plan the foothold adjustment according to different speeds. Finally, experiments show that the proposed method can effectively realize multi-angle turning and U-turn and O-circle turning motion of quadruped robot, which proves the effectiveness of the proposed method. At the same time, the biomimetic turning control method proposed in this paper can be easily extended to other biomimetic robot movements inspired by other organisms.