Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

CiteULike is a free service for managing and discovering scholarly references - click here to get started.

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
The International Journal of Robotics Research
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by McIsaac, K. A.
Right arrow Articles by Ostrowski, J. P.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

A Framework for Steering Dynamic Robotic Locomotion Systems

Kenneth A. McIsaac

Department of Elec. and Comp. Eng. University of Western Ontario London, Ontario, Canada N6G 1H1 kmcisaac{at}engga.uwo.ca

James P. Ostrowski

General Robotics Automation, Sensing and Perception (GRASP) Laboratory University of Pennsylvania 3401 Walnut Street Philadelphia, PA 19104-6228 jpo{at}grip.cis.upenn.edu

We seek to formulate control and motion planning algorithms for a class of dynamic robotic locomotion systems. We consider mechanical systems that involve some type of interaction with the environment and have dynamics that possess rotational and translational symmetries. Research in non-holonomic systems and geometric mechanics has led to a single, simplified framework that describes this class of systems. In this paper, we explore a hybrid systems approach to generating motion plans for systems of this type. We perform a dynamic analysis of the system to find a small set of periodic control inputs for momentum generation in desired directions. We then find a simplified, kinematic model which captures the fundamental nature of the locomotion system and we use this abstract model for motion planning. This approach is inherently modular, since broad classes of locomotion systems can be described by the same kinematic approximation. In this paper, we describe the application of such an approach to two examples: the snakeboard robot and an eel-like, underwater robot.

Key Words: robot locomotion • snake-like robotics • hybrid systems • perturbation approaches • underactuated systems

The International Journal of Robotics Research, Vol. 22, No. 2, 83-97 (2003)
DOI: 10.1177/0278364903022002001
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?