Walking control using phase plane of a hydraulic biped humanoid robot

This paper proposes a novel control method using phase plane for a hydraulic biped humanoid robot. In biped walking control, it is much more difficult to control the posture of a biped robot in the coronal plane because the supporting area formed by the both feet in the coronal plane is much narrower than that of the sagittal plane. When the biped robot walks stably, the phase portrait of the pelvis in the coronal plane makes an elliptical shape. From this point of view, we develop an ankle torque controller and a foot placement controller for tracking the desired phase portrait during walking. We design these controllers by using simulations of a simplified compass gait biped model to regulate the desired phase portrait of pelvis. The effectiveness of the proposed control method is proved through full-body dynamic walking simulations and real experiments of the SARCOS hydraulic biped humanoid.