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U of M College of Engineering Control Seminar Series Sponsored by Ford Motor Company, General Motors, and Whirlpool |
Walking and Running in Bipedal Robots:
Control Theory and Experiments
Professor Jessy Grizzle
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer
Science
University of Michigan
This
presentation is a dry run for a plenary lecture at the IEEE Conference on
Decision and Control, December 15, 2004, Bahamas.
A
canonical problem in bipedal robots is how to design a closed-loop system that
generates stable, periodic motions (i.e., limit cycles). Some of the inherent
difficulties facing the control engineer include: the intermittent nature of
the contact conditions with the ground; the many degrees of freedom in the
mechanisms; and underactuation. It is perhaps not surprising therefore that the
most technologically advanced bipedal robots today are controlled on the basis
of heuristic principles that result in restricted motions and require many
experimental trials before successful locomotion is achieved. This lecture
summarizes recent theoretical advances that allow the systematic design of
provably, asymptotically stable, walking and running gaits in underactuated,
planar, bipedal robots. The resulting feedback control laws are time invariant.
In particular, they are constructed around fundamental notions of
invariance---properly extended to hybrid systems---and do not rely on
trajectory tracking. In the case of walking, experimental confirmation of the
principal results will be presented. The lecture is designed to be accessible
to control engineers of all types. The presentation is liberally illustrated
with graphics and videos that explain and support the underlying theory. For
further information, see:
Theory:
http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~grizzle/papers/robotics.html
Experiments:
http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~grizzle/papers/RABBITExperiments.html
The following individuals have made important contributions to the material in the lecture: G. Abba, Y. Aoustin, G. Buche, C. Canudas-de-Wit, C. Chevallereau, J.H. Choi, D. Koditschek, B. Morris, F. Plestan, and E. R. Westervelt. The support of the National Science Foundation is gratefully acknowledged.
3:30 – 4:30 p.m.
Open to the
public www.engin.umich.edu/research/controls