Biorobotics Laboratory BioRob

Mathieu Salzmann (Semester project 2003)

Development of quadruped locomotion controllers
based on nonlinear oscillators

The aim of this project was to develop controllers based on nonlinear oscillators to generate different gaits in quadruped locomotion. The three generated gaits were the walk, the trot and the bound (equivalent to gallop). We wanted to be able to have transitions between the different gaits by changing only one parameter in the differential equations of the controllers. The equations of the oscillators were based on Stein's neuronal model, but the phasic part was removed in order to have only a tonic signal. Results were found and implemented using Webots with Sony's robot Aibo. The movies from the simulation can be viewed below.

Project report:

Project Report (in pdf format): report.pdf

Sample movies:

Aibo walking: mpeg movie (7.8MB), DivX movie (1.2MB),
Aibo trotting: mpeg movie (3.9MB), DivX movie (1.3MB),
Aibo bounding: mpeg movie (2.6MB), DivX movie (900KB),
Aibo speeding up (walk-trot-bound): mpeg movie (14.3MB), DivX movie (3.7MB),
Aibo slowing down (bound-trot-walk): mpeg movie(14.3MB), DivX movie(3.8MB),
Aibo making all possible transitions: mpeg movie (36.5MB), DivX movie (9.6MB)