Development of force control and proprioception on a closed chain 5-segment leg

In this paper we demonstrate a simple and equipment-light manner of tuning the actuation and proprioception of Spring-Loaded Inverted Pendulum (SLIP) control for a 5-segment monoped. We show that with simple calibration tests, one can greatly improve the accuracy of force commands as well as motor proprioception, reducing mean percentage error for actuation from 19.7% to 6.4 %, and reducing vertical force proprioception accuracy from 38.0% to 4.1%. This low-level force accuracy allows for much greater accuracy in control schemes utilizing vertical force control. It was shown however that the same methods could not be utilized successfully for horizontal forces.