Controlling a bipedal walking robot actuated by pleated pneumatic artificial muscles

Abstract

This paper reports on the control structure of the pneumatic biped Lucy. The robot is actuated with pleated pneumatic artificial muscles, which have interesting characteristics that can be exploited for legged locomotion. They have a high power to weight ratio, an adaptable compliance and they can absorb impact effects.

The discussion of the control architecture focuses on the joint trajectory generator and the joint trajectory tracking controller. The trajectory generator calculates trajectories represented by polynomials based on objective locomotion parameters, which are average forward speed, step length, step height and intermediate foot lift. The joint trajectory tracking controller is divided in three parts: a computed torque module, a delta-p unit and a bang-bang pressure controller. The control design is formulated for the single support and double support phase, where specifically the trajectory generator and the computed torque differs for these two phases.

The first results of the incorporation of this control architecture in the real biped Lucy are given. Several essential graphs, such as pressure courses, are discussed and the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is shown by the small deviations between desired and actual attained objective locomotion parameters.