TY - GEN
T1 - Crawling Gait Enables Stable Quadrupedal Locomotion in A Bioinspired Robotic Rat
AU - Wang, Ruochao
AU - Quan, Xiaolong
AU - Xiao, Hang
AU - Du, Rongjie
AU - Qin, Boyang
AU - Shi, Qing
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 IEEE.
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - Constrained by the performance of actuators and controllers, achieving stable walking in small-scale quadruped robots has been more challenging compared to larger ones. Rats, in their natural habitat, can achieve stable walking even in extreme environments like narrow spaces by utilizing crawling motion to lower their center of mass. Inspired by this, we conducted a comparative study of the walking stability between crawling and trot gaits on a ratinspired robot named SQuRo. Initially, we collected motion data for both crawling and trot gaits of SQuRo in a simulated environment. Subsequently, we analyzed the dynamic stability of the robot using Poincaré maps. The results indicate that SQuRo's phase trajectories converged into closed loops with periodicity under both gaits, demonstrating the presence of limit cycles. Moreover, fixed points were observed in the Poincaré maps for both gaits, suggesting the dynamic stability of quadrupedal locomotion. Compared to the trot gait, the convergence loops of the crawling gait phase trajectories were smaller, indicating more stable locomotion. We tested the performance of SQuRo's crawling gait in challenging outdoor environments, where SQuRo demonstrated stable walking consistently. This work provides a new approach for achieving stable walking in small-scale quadruped robots and can be readily applied to controller design across different sizes of legged robots.
AB - Constrained by the performance of actuators and controllers, achieving stable walking in small-scale quadruped robots has been more challenging compared to larger ones. Rats, in their natural habitat, can achieve stable walking even in extreme environments like narrow spaces by utilizing crawling motion to lower their center of mass. Inspired by this, we conducted a comparative study of the walking stability between crawling and trot gaits on a ratinspired robot named SQuRo. Initially, we collected motion data for both crawling and trot gaits of SQuRo in a simulated environment. Subsequently, we analyzed the dynamic stability of the robot using Poincaré maps. The results indicate that SQuRo's phase trajectories converged into closed loops with periodicity under both gaits, demonstrating the presence of limit cycles. Moreover, fixed points were observed in the Poincaré maps for both gaits, suggesting the dynamic stability of quadrupedal locomotion. Compared to the trot gait, the convergence loops of the crawling gait phase trajectories were smaller, indicating more stable locomotion. We tested the performance of SQuRo's crawling gait in challenging outdoor environments, where SQuRo demonstrated stable walking consistently. This work provides a new approach for achieving stable walking in small-scale quadruped robots and can be readily applied to controller design across different sizes of legged robots.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85205301252&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/RCAR61438.2024.10671239
DO - 10.1109/RCAR61438.2024.10671239
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85205301252
T3 - 2024 IEEE International Conference on Real-Time Computing and Robotics, RCAR 2024
SP - 68
EP - 73
BT - 2024 IEEE International Conference on Real-Time Computing and Robotics, RCAR 2024
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 2024 IEEE International Conference on Real-Time Computing and Robotics, RCAR 2024
Y2 - 24 June 2024 through 28 June 2024
ER -