MIT Cheetah 3: Design and Control of a Robust, Dynamic Quadruped Robot
Name
IROS.pdf
Description
Accepted version
Size
292.22 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
856fb4a6be0632f98a06aa6b8e932b92
Author(s)
Bledt, Gerardo
Powell, Matthew J.
Katz, Benjamin
Di Carlo, Jared
Wensing, Patrick M.
Kim, Sangbae
Date Issued
January 2019
Journal
IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems
Publisher
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Citation
Bledt, Gerado et al. "MIT Cheetah 3: Design and Control of a Robust, Dynamic Quadruped Robot." IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, October 2018, Madrid Spain, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, January 2019. © 2018 IEEE
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
This paper introduces a new robust, dynamic quadruped, the MIT Cheetah 3. Like its predecessor, the Cheetah 3 exploits tailored mechanical design to enable simple control strategies for dynamic locomotion and features high-bandwidth proprioceptive actuators to manage physical interaction with the environment. A new leg design is presented that includes proprioceptive actuation on the abduction/adduction degrees of freedom in addition to an expanded range of motion on the hips and knees. To make full use of these new capabilities, general balance and locomotion controllers for Cheetah 3 are presented. These controllers are embedded into a modular control architecture that allows the robot to handle unexpected terrain disturbances through reactive gait modification and without the need for external sensors or prior environment knowledge. The efficiency of the robot is demonstrated by a low Cost of Transport (CoT) over multiple gaits at moderate speeds, with the lowest CoT of 0.45 found during trotting. Experiments showcase the ability to blindly climb up stairs as a result of the full system integration. These results collectively represent a promising step toward a platform capable of generalized dynamic legged locomotion.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1109/iros.2018.8593885
