Software and control design for the MIT Cheetah quadruped robots

Abstract

This thesis documents the development and implementation of software and controllers for the MIT Mini Cheetah and MIT Cheetah 3 robots. The open source software I developed is designed to provide a framework for other research groups to use the Mini Cheetah platform and is currently being used by seven other groups from around the world. The controllers I developed for this thesis are provided as example code for these groups, and can be used to make the robot walk, run, and do a backflip. The locomotion controller utilizes a simplified model and convex optimization to stabilize complex gaits online, allowing it to control complex, fully 3D gaits with flight periods, such as galloping. The backflip is accomplished through offline trajectory optimization with an accurate dynamic model and was the first backflip done on a quadruped robot.