Feasible Region: An Actuation-Aware Extension of the Support Region

In legged locomotion, the projection of the robot's Center of Mass (CoM) being inside the convex hull of the contact points is a commonly accepted sufficient condition to achieve static balancing. However, some of these configurations cannot be realized because the joint-torques required to sus...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on robotics 2020-08, Vol.36 (4), p.1239-1255
Main Authors: Orsolino, Romeo, Focchi, Michele, Caron, Stephane, Raiola, Gennaro, Barasuol, Victor, Caldwell, Darwin G., Semini, Claudio
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Actuation
Algorithms
Body weight
Computational geometry
Configurations
Convexity
Dynamics
Ellipsoids
Hulls
Iterative methods
Legged locomotion
Locomotion
multi-contact motion planning and control
optimization and optimal control
Robot dynamics
Robots
Stability criteria
Static stability
Task analysis
Torque
Two dimensional displays
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Summary:In legged locomotion, the projection of the robot's Center of Mass (CoM) being inside the convex hull of the contact points is a commonly accepted sufficient condition to achieve static balancing. However, some of these configurations cannot be realized because the joint-torques required to sustain them would be above their limits (actuation limits). In this article, we rule out such configurations and define the feasible region, a revisited support region that guarantees both global static stability in the sense of tip-over and slippage avoidance and of existence of a set of joint-torques that are able to sustain the robot's body weight. We show that the feasible region can be employed for the online selection of feasible footholds and CoM trajectories to achieve statically stable locomotion on rough terrains, also in presence of load-intensive tasks. Key results of our approach include the efficiency in the computation of the feasible region using an Iterative Projection (IP) algorithm and the successful execution of hardware experiments on the HyQ robot, that was able to negotiate obstacles of moderate dimensions while carrying an extra 10-kg payload.
ISSN:1552-3098
1941-0468
DOI:10.1109/TRO.2020.2983318