Hiroaki Uchida

Development of teleoperated six-legged walking robot for mine detection and mapping of mine field

Our project has developed and studied high instrumentation technologies for mine detection and mine disposal using measuring equipment mounted on a six-legged teleoperated walking robots. This robot is called COMET-1 which is a full-autonomous obstacle avoidance robot or a semi-autonomous obstacle avoidance robot that requires the operators intervention. When detecting a mine, the robot will lower each leg onto the ground safely and stably without stepping on a mine. For the simulations and experiments in the present study, the authors created a simulation model by attaching an optical proximity sensor on the foot of each leg and designed a walking algorithm using compliance control. Also, they verified the efficiency by means of walking experiments.

Force/attitude control of mine detecting six-legged locomotion robot

We propose a mine detecting method using a six-legged locomotion robot. It is consider that mine detecting field is an uneven terrain, so, we need to develop the stable walking method using attitude control. We propose an attitude control method and verify the validity of attitude control method by 3D simulations on an even terrain as well as an uneven terrain.

WALKING DIRECTION CONTROL OF A SIX-LEGGED ROBOT BY OPTIMAL SERVO SYSTEM

The general control method of a six-legged robot is to control the angle of the leg joint to follow the desired orbit. However, on irregular terrain, it is necessary to recognize the walking environment beforehand, and, to design the desired orbit that is appropriate for the environment. For such a problem, it is well known that force control and posture control are valid control methods for the adjustment to the walking environment. Hirose et al. designed and marketed a spread type quadruped robot with a leg consisting of links to generate the moving speed in the rotating part and to generate the power for supporting the weight of the body in the thigh part. We’ve focused on this mechanism to control the posture (pitching angle, rolling angle, and height of the body) of the six-legged robot by controlling the thigh link by the three supporting legs. And the validity of the proposed method were verified by 3D simulations and the walking experiments. However, the report that examined the control method for controlling the position on the walking direction and the yawing angle of the body at the same time hasn’t been performed for a six-legged robot. In this study, we examine the control method of controlling the walking both direction (x, y) and the yawing angle of the body at the same time for the six-legged robot having the above mentioned mechanism. In this method, it isn’t necessary to design the desired orbit of the rotating link at the supporting leg beforehand, and it is able to correspond also to the walking speed control of the multi-legged robot as well as the speed control of a car. Six-legged robot is able to realize the

Quasi-Dynamic Walk of Quadruped Locomotion Robot Using Frequency-Shaped Optimal Tracking Control.

This paper deals with the quasi-dynamic walk of a quadruped locomotion robot using a frequency-shaped optimal tracking control method. In the case of control for a locomotion robot, high feedback (FB) gain should be used in order to compensate the force and the moment from the body and the reaction force from the ground. But if high FB gain is used, high-frequency vibration occurs because of the backlash of the gear. Frequency-shaped optimal control is a control method to improve the robustness against disturbances of this kind. Frequency-shaped optimal tracking control is used to extend frequency-shaped optimal control to a servo system like the trajectory control of the robot. First, we show the design method of frequency-shaped optimal tracking control. Next, decentralized control is realized to apply frequency-shape optimal tracking control. Finally, frequency-shaped optimal tracking control is compared with optimal tracking control from the point of view of simulations and experiments.