Abstract
Bio-inspired robotic designs introducing and benefiting from morphological aspects present in animals allowed the generation of fast, robust and energy efficient locomotion. We used engineering tools and interdisciplinary knowledge transferred from biology to build low-cost robots able to achieve a certain level of versatility. Serval, a compliant quadruped robot with actuated spine and high range of motion in all joints was developed to address the question of what mechatronic complexity is needed to achieve rich motion skills. In our experiments, the robot presented a high level of versatility (number of skills) at medium speed, with a minimal control effort and, in this article, no usage of its spine. Implementing a basic kinematics-duplication from dogs, we found strengths to emphasize, weaknesses to correct and made Serval ready for future attempts to achieve more agile locomotion. In particular, we investigated the following skills: trot, bound (crouched), sidestep, turn with a radius, ascend slopes including flat ground transition, perform single and double step-downs, fall, trot over bumpy terrain, lie/sit down, and stand up.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
No sound available due to recording without microphone.
References
Eckert, P., Ijspeert, A.J.: Benchmarking agility for multi-legged terrestrial robots. IEEE Trans. Robot. 8 (2018, in progress)
Ajallooeian, M.: Pattern generation for rough terrain locomotion with quadrupedal robots. Ph.D. thesis, EPFL (2015)
Full, R.J., Koditschek, D.E., Full, R.J.: Templates and anchors: neuromechanical hypotheses of legged locomotion on land. J. Exp. Biol. 2(12), 3–125 (1999)
Ijspeert, A.J.: Biorobotics: using robots to emulate and investigate agile locomotion. Science 346(6206), 196–203 (2014)
Seok, S., Wang, A., Chuah, M.Y., Otten, D., Lang, J., Kim, S.: Design principles for highly efficient quadrupeds and implementation on the MIT Cheetah robot. In: Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pp. 3307–3312. IEEE, May 2013
Park, H.W., Park, S., Kim, S.: Variable-speed quadrupedal bounding using impulse planning: untethered high-speed 3D running of MIT Cheetah 2. In: Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pp. 5163–5170, May–June 2015
Hutter, M.: ANYmal - A Highly Mobile and Dynamic Quadrupedal Robot. Arbeitsberichte Verkehrs- und Raumplanung, IVT, ETH Zurich, vol. 544, pp. 1–25 (2009)
Hutter, M., Gehring, C., Höpflinger, M.A., Blösch, M., Siegwart, R.: Toward combining speed, efficiency, versatility, and robustness in an autonomous quadruped. IEEE Trans. Robot. 30(6), 1427–1440 (2014)
Poulakakis, I., Smith, J.A., Buehler, M.: Modeling and experiments of untethered quadrupedal running with a bounding gait: the scout II robot. Int. J. Robot. Res. 24(4), 239–256 (2005)
Pusey, J.L., Duperret, J.M., Haynes, G.C., Knopf, R., Koditschek, D.E.: Free-standing leaping experiments with a power-autonomous elastic-spined quadruped. In: SPIE Defense, Security, and Sensing, vol. 8741, p. 87410W (2013)
Kimura, H., Fukuoka, Y., Cohen, A.H.: Adaptive dynamic walking of a quadruped robot on natural ground based on biological concepts. Int. J. Robot. Res. 26(5), 475–490 (2007)
Fukuoka, Y., Kimura, H.: Dynamic locomotion of a biomorphic quadruped Tekken robot using various gaits: walk, trot, free-gait and bound. Appl. Bionics Biomech. 6(1), 63–71 (2009)
Iida, F., Pfeifer, R.: Cheap rapid locomotion of a quadruped robot: self-stabilization of bounding gait. In: Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Intelligent Autonomous Systems (IAS-8), vol. 8, pp. 642–649 (2004)
Iida, F., Gómez, G., Pfeifer, R.: Exploiting body dynamics for controlling a running quadruped robot. In: Proceedings of 2005 International Conference on Advanced Robotics, ICAR 2005, vol. 2005, pp. 229–235. IEEE (2005)
Spröwitz, A., Tuleu, A., Vespignani, M., Ajallooeian, M., Badri, E., Ijspeert, A.J.: Towards dynamic trot gait locomotion: design, control, and experiments with Cheetah-cub, a compliant quadruped robot. Int. J. Robot. Res. 32(8), 932–950 (2013)
Khoramshahi, M., Sprowitz, A., Tuleu, A., Ahmadabadi, M.N., Ijspeert, A.J.: Benefits of an active spine supported bounding locomotion with a small compliant quadruped robot. In: Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pp. 3329–3334 (2013)
Sprowitz, A.T., et al.: Oncilla robot: a versatile open-source quadruped research robot with compliant pantograph legs. Front. Robot. AI 5, 67 (2018)
Eckert, P., Sprowitz, A., Witte, H., Ijspeert, A.J.: Comparing the effect of different spine and leg designs for a small bounding quadruped robot. In: Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, vol. 2015, pp. 3128–3133, June 2015
Weinmeister, K., Eckert, P., Witte, H., Ijspeert, A.J.: Cheetah-cub-S: steering of a quadruped robot using trunk motion. In: 2015 IEEE International Symposium on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics (SSRR), pp. 1–6 (2015)
Witte, H., et al.: Transfer of biological principles into the construction of quadruped walking machines. In: Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Robot Motion and Control, RoMoCo 2001, pp. 245–249 (2001)
Söhnel, K., Andrada, E., De Lussanet, M.H.E., Wagner, H., Fischer, M.S.: Kinetics in Jumping Regarding Agility Dogs (2017)
Tuleu, A.: Hardware, software and control design considerations towards low-cost compliant quadruped robots. Ph.D. thesis, EPFL (2016)
Horvat, T., Karakasiliotis, K., Melo, K., Fleury, L., Thandiackal, R., Ijspeert, A.J.: Inverse kinematics and reflex based controller for body-limb coordination of a salamander-like robot walking on uneven terrain. In: IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, vol. 2015, pp. 195–201. IEEE, September–December 2015
Smith, J.L., Carlson-Kuhta, P., Trank, T.V.: Forms of forward quadrupedal locomotion. III. A comparison of posture, hindlimb kinematics, and motor patterns for downslope and level walking. J. Neurophysiol. 79(4), 1702–1716 (1998)
Schmerbauch, A.E.M., Eckert, P., Witte, H., Ijspeert, A.J.: Implementation and analysis of rich locomotion behavior on the bio-inspired, quadruped robot Serval (2017)
Acknowledgements
We thank the “Bewegungslabor (OpenLab) der westfälischen Wilhelms Universität Münster”, especially Dr. Marc de Lussanet and Prof. Dr. Heiko Wagner. We wish to thank the owners of the dogs for providing the experimental subjects. This collaborative work was financially supported by the NCCR Robotics and gkf Gesellschaft für kynologische Forschung. We thank the editors and reviewers for their constructive criticism.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Eckert, P. et al. (2018). Towards Rich Motion Skills with the Lightweight Quadruped Robot Serval - A Design, Control and Experimental Study. In: Manoonpong, P., Larsen, J., Xiong, X., Hallam, J., Triesch, J. (eds) From Animals to Animats 15. SAB 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10994. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97628-0_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97628-0_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-97627-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-97628-0
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)