Exploiting the Passive Dynamics of a Compliant Leg to Develop Gait Transitions

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the spring loaded inverted pendulum model for bipedal locomotion, identifying stable and unstable gait regions and proposing control strategies to induce gait transitions exploiting passive dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces a hybrid dynamical systems perspective to analyze SLIP model dynamics, revealing how to exploit unstable regions for gait transitions at constant energy.

Findings

Identified stable and unstable regions of locomotion.

Demonstrated gait transitions by exploiting unstable regions.

Proposed simple control policies for system stability.

Abstract

In the area of bipedal locomotion, the spring loaded inverted pendulum (SLIP) model has been proposed as a unified framework to explain the dynamics of a wide variety of gaits. In this paper, we present a novel analysis of the mathematical model and its dynamical properties. We use the perspective of hybrid dynamical systems to study the dynamics and define concepts such as partial stability and viability. With this approach, on the one hand, we identified stable and unstable regions of locomotion. On the other hand, we found ways to exploit the unstable regions of locomotion to induce gait transitions at a constant energy regime. Additionally, we show that simple non-constant angle of attack control policies can render the system almost always stable.