Three dimensional locomotion control of single-legged robot

This study proposes a locomotion controller for a single-legged robot. The locomotion controller comprises five parts: virtual spring, height control, forward velocity control, body attitude control, and running direction control. First, we propose an effective method called a virtual spring to generate a springy force using a linear actuator. Second, a height controller is proposed based on the resonance oscillation using two virtual springs. And, they are also adopted to compute the energy exchange and to compensate the energy loss during hopping. In addition, a running direction controller, which has never been resolved in previous studies, is proposed. This novel controller can remove the unexpected angular motion about the yaw direction during running. All of the proposed algorithms and methods are validated through dynamic simulations.