Waldron, Kenneth Ohio State University $156,958 - 12 mos. (1/3 of funding is from ECS division of Engineering Directorate)
A Study of Quadruped Gallops by Simulation and Experimentation
This is the first year funding of a three year continuing award. The proposed project includes simulation, design, construction and testing of a legged robot in gallop gaits. The project will test theoretical models of the mechanics and control of galloping developed by the authors and others. The project will break new ground by being the first attempt to operate an artificial machine in a true gallop. Other new departures will be numerical and experimental investigation of strategies for rapid starts and stops, and for sudden changes in direction. A gallop is more complex than the symmetric gaits used in previous running quadrupedal robot studies because it is a single-foot gait with the feet touching down individually, and because it is obviously asymmetric. The asymmetry results from the non-linear interaction of the ballistic trajectories of the body between footfalls and the pitch and roll movements of the body resulting from off-axis foot thrusts. Control and stabilization of galloping will be extensively studied in numerical simulation before implementation in hardware. The same approach of simulation followed by experimental testing will be used to study strategies for rapid starts, stops and changes of direction.
