| Overview |
|
The motivation for studying walking robots arises from diverse sociological and commercial interests, ranging from the desire to replace humans in hazardous occupations (de-mining, nuclear power plant inspection, military interventions, etc.), to the restoration of motion in the disabled (dynamically-controlled lower-limb prostheses), and the appeal of machines that operate in anthropomorphic or animal-like ways (well-known biped and quadruped toys). From a control design perspective, the challenges in legged robots arise from the many degrees of freedom in the mechanisms, the intermittent nature of the contact conditions with the environment, and underactuation. Work in the Control Laboratory is focused on the development of nonlinear control methods to obtain provable motion properties, such as provably asymptotically stable walking and running. This theoretical work is complemented with extensive experiments. |
|
| |
|
Related Labs, Centers, and Groups Control Systems Area Dynamic Legged Locomotion Lab |
