Thruster-Assisted Incline Walking
Kaushik Venkatesh Krishnamurthy, Chenghao Wang, Shreyansh Pitroda,, Adarsh Salagame, Eric Sihite, Reza Nemovi, Alireza Ramezani, Morteza Gharib

TL;DR
This paper explores thruster-assisted steep slope walking for a quadrupedal robot, using simulation to evaluate a novel control approach inspired by bird wing-assisted incline running, incorporating posture and thrust vectoring.
Contribution
It introduces a new thruster-assisted locomotion technique with posture manipulation and thrust vectoring, modeled and optimized through simulation for quadrupedal robots.
Findings
Feasibility demonstrated through simulation
Control approach suitable for hardware implementation
Inspiration from bird wing-assisted incline running
Abstract
In this study, our aim is to evaluate the effectiveness of thruster-assisted steep slope walking for the Husky Carbon, a quadrupedal robot equipped with custom-designed actuators and plural electric ducted fans, through simulation prior to conducting experimental trials. Thruster-assisted steep slope walking draws inspiration from wing-assisted incline running (WAIR) observed in birds, and intriguingly incorporates posture manipulation and thrust vectoring, a locomotion technique not previously explored in the animal kingdom. Our approach involves developing a reduced-order model of the Husky robot, followed by the application of an optimization-based controller utilizing collocation methods and dynamics interpolation to determine control actions. Through simulation testing, we demonstrate the feasibility of hardware implementation of our controller.
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Taxonomy
TopicsDielectric materials and actuators · Advanced Sensor and Energy Harvesting Materials
