Technical Report on: Tripedal Dynamic Gaits for a Quadruped Robot

TL;DR

This paper empirically investigates fault-tolerant tripedal gaits for quadruped robots with a missing limb, demonstrating a generalizable approach to recover from limb damage in complex environments.

Contribution

It introduces a novel compositional gait controller that adapts planar monopedal hopping to three-legged quadrupeds with limb damage, enhancing robot resilience.

Findings

Gait controller successfully stabilizes damaged quadruped robots

Planar monopedal hopping template effectively anchors in 3D

Approach offers a generalizable method for limb damage recovery

Abstract

A vast number of applications for legged robots entail tasks in complex, dynamic environments. But these environments put legged robots at high risk for limb damage. This paper presents an empirical study of fault tolerant dynamic gaits designed for a quadrupedal robot suffering from a single, known "missing" limb. Preliminary data suggests that the featured gait controller successfully anchors a previously developed planar monopedal hopping template in the three-legged spatial machine. This compositional approach offers a useful and generalizable guide to the development of a wider range of tripedal recovery gaits for damaged quadrupedal machines.