Control of stance-leg motion and zero-moment point for achieving perfect upright stationary state of rimless wheel type walker with parallel linkage legs

Abstract The authors have studied models and control methods for legged robots without having active ankle joints that can not only walk efficiently but also stop and developed a method for generating a gait that starts from an upright stationary state and returns to the same state in one step for a simple walker with one control input. It was clarified, however, that achieving a perfect upright stationary state including zero dynamics is impossible. Based on the observation, in this paper we propose a novel robotic walker with parallel linkage legs that can return to a perfect stationary standing posture in one step while simultaneously controlling the stance-leg motion and zero-moment point (ZMP) using two control inputs. First, we introduce a model of a planar walker that consists of two eight-legged rimless wheels, a body frame, a reaction wheel, and massless rods and describe the system dynamics. Second, we consider two target control conditions; one is control of the stance-leg motion, and the other is control of the ZMP to stabilize zero dynamics. We then determine the control input based on the two conditions with the target control period derived from the linearized model and consider adding a sinusoidal control input with an offset to correct the resultant terminal state of the reaction wheel. The validity of the proposed method is investigated through numerical simulations.