Force control strategies in hydraulically actuated legged robots

Abstract

In this contribution, several strategies of force control have been proposed to be implemented and evaluated in ROBOCLIMBER, a quadruped robot of large dimensions. A first group of strategies proposed in this paper is based on impedance control, which is intended to adapt the footground contact forces according to the experimentally specified damping ratio and the undamped natural frequency. A second control strategy of interest for many practical cases is called the parallel force/position control, which has one inner loop position control and two external control loops, one of force and another of position. A third group of control strategies is the posture stabilization for ROBOCLIMBER using the feedback of the ZMP calculation and the position of its legs. Finally, a control strategy for the control of a quasi-static gait using ZMP feedback is proposed and tested by simulation.