Omnidirectional walking of a quadruped robot enabled by compressible tendon-driven soft actuators

Abstract

Using soft actuators as legs, soft quadruped robots have shown great potential in traversing unstructured and complex terrains and environments. However, unlike rigid robots whose gaits can be generated using foot pattern design and kinematic model of the rigid legs, the gait generation of soft quadruped robots remains challenging due to the high DoFs of the soft actuators and the uncertain deformations during their contact with the ground. This study is based on a quadruped robot using four Compressible Tendon-driven Soft Actuators (CTSAs) as the legs, with the actuator's compression motion being utilized to improve the walking performance of the robot. For the gait design, an inverse kinematics model considering the compression of the CTSA is developed and validated in simulation. Based on this model, walking gaits realizing different motion speeds and directions are generated. Closed loop direction and speed controllers are developed for increasing the robustness and precision of the robot walking. Simulation and experimental results show that omnidirectional locomotion and complex walking tasks can be realized by tuning the gait parameters and the motions are resistant to external disturbances.