Posture Control of a Low-Cost Commercially Available Hexapod Robot for Uneven Terrain Locomotion

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Posture Control of a Low-Cost Commercially Available Hexapod Robot for Uneven Terrain Locomotion Posture control of a low-cost commercially available hexapod robot for uneven terrain locomotion Mayur Tikam 10055747 Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Master of Engineering (Mechanical Engineering) Department of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology UNIVERSITY OF PRETORIA Supervisor: Prof. Nico J. Theron Co-supervisor: Dr Dan Withey May 2018 Abstract Legged robots hold the advantage on uneven and irregular terrain, where they exhibit superior mobility over other terrestrial, mobile robots. One of the fundamental ingredients in achieving this exceptional mobility on uneven terrain is posture control, also referred to as attitude control. Many approaches to posture control for multi-legged robots have been taken in the literature; however, the majority of this research has been conducted on custom designed platforms, with sophisticated hardware and, often, fully custom software. Commercially available robots hardly feature in research on uneven terrain locomotion of legged robots, despite the significant advantages they pose over custom designed robots, including drastically lower costs, reusability of parts, and reduced development time, giving them the serious potential to be employed as low-cost research and development platforms. Hence, the aim of this study was to design and implement a posture control system on a low-cost, commercially available hexapod robot – the PhantomX MK-II – overcoming the limitations presented by the lower cost hardware and open source software, while still achieving performance comparable to that exhibited by custom designed robots. For the initial controller development, only the case of the robot standing on all six legs was considered, without accounting for walking motion. This Standing Posture Controller made use of the Virtual Model Control (VMC) strategy, along with a simple foot force distribution rule and a direct force control method for each of the legs, the joints of which can only be position controlled (i.e. they do not have torque control capabilities). The Standing Posture Controller was experimentally tested on level and uneven terrain, as well as on a dynamic balance board. Ground truth measurements of the posture during testing exhibited satisfactory performance, which compared favourably to results of similar tests performed on custom designed platforms. Thereafter, the control system was modified for the more general case of walking. The Walking Posture Controller still made use of VMC for the high-level posture control, but the foot force distribution was expanded to also account for a tripod of ground contact legs during walking. Additionally, the foot force control structure was modified to achieve compliance control of the legs during the swing phase, while still providing direct force control during the stance phase, using the same overall control structure, with a simple switching strategy, all without the need for torque control or modification of the motion control system of the legs, resulting in a novel foot force control system for low-cost, legged robots. Experimental testing of the Walking Posture Controller, with ground truth measurements, revealed that it improved the robot’s posture response by a small amount when walking on flat terrain, while on an uneven terrain setup the maximum roll and pitch ii angle deviations were reduced by up to 28.6% and 28.1%, respectively, as compared to the uncompensated case. In addition to reducing the maximum deviations on uneven terrain, the overall posture response was significantly improved, resulting in a response much closer to that observed on flat terrain, throughout much of the uneven terrain locomotion. Comparing these results to those obtained in similar tests performed with more sophisticated, custom designed robots, it is evident that the Walking Posture Controller exhibits favourable performance, thus fulfilling the aim of this study. Keywords: Legged robots, hexapod robot, posture control, Virtual Model Control, force control, uneven terrain locomotion iii Acknowledgements I would like to thank my project supervisor, Prof. N. J. Theron, for being willing to take on a project outside of his regular field of research and for providing guidance and insights throughout the course of the project. In addition, I would like to express my gratitude towards my co-supervisor, Dr D. Withey, whose willingness to share his knowledge and expertise, as well as spending tireless hours sharing ideas and reviewing my documentation, are truly appreciated. This research would not have been possible without funding from the TSO unit at the CSIR – I sincerely appreciate the financial support received from them, as well as the moral support from the management and technical assistance from many of the staff members, with various aspects of design and manufacturing required in this project. A noteworthy acknowledgement should also be made to Estelle Lubbe, for sharing the insights she gained throughout her research work with the PhantomX platform, as well as for converting her kinematic model algorithm from MATLAB to C++. I am also grateful to the MIAS group at the CSIR, for allowing me to make use of their facility and resources, and to staff members at MIAS for their assistance with the Vicon motion capture system and gathering data during experimental testing. Other individuals I would like to thank include Kevin Ochs, for being willing to share his hexapod locomotion software (before making it publicly available) and providing useful information for getting acquainted with the code base, as well as Corne Gouws at NMISA, for taking out the time to assist with the testing of force sensors. My thanks also go out to Malcolm Pandaram, for helping me to get started on working with Linux and coding in C++, and to Kriven Naidoo for his assistance during experimental testing. Finally, this dissertation is dedicated to my mother, Daksha Tikam, without whose continuous inspiration, encouragement, and sacrifices, I would never have had the opportunity to pursue my studies as far as I have. iv Table of Contents Lists of Figures ......................................................................................................................................... x List of Tables ......................................................................................................................................... xv Nomenclature .......................................................................................................................................xvi List of Acronyms ................................................................................................................................xvi List of Symbols ................................................................................................................................ xviii Chapter 1: Introduction .......................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Background ............................................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Problem Statement ................................................................................................................. 2 1.3 Aim .......................................................................................................................................... 3 1.4 Methodology ........................................................................................................................... 3 1.5 Scope ....................................................................................................................................... 4 1.6 Validation and Verification Methods ...................................................................................... 5 1.7 Contributions of the Study ...................................................................................................... 5 1.8 Dissertation Overview ............................................................................................................. 6 Chapter 2: Literature Review .................................................................................................. 8 2.1 The Field of Robotics ............................................................................................................... 8 2.2 Mobile Robots ......................................................................................................................... 9 2.2.1 Types of Locomotion ..................................................................................................... 11 2.2.2 Wheeled Robots ............................................................................................................ 12 2.3 Legged Robots ....................................................................................................................... 13 2.3.1 Advantages of Legged Robots ....................................................................................... 13 2.3.2 Disadvantages of Legged Robots .................................................................................. 15 2.3.3 Types of Legged Robots ................................................................................................ 16 2.3.4 Gaits and Stability ......................................................................................................... 19 2.3.5 Legged Robot Sensory
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