Abstract
This paper studies the design, modeling, and control of a novel robotic limb that produces overconstrained locomotion by employing the Bennett linkage for motion generation, capable of parametric reconfiguration between a reptile- and mammal-inspired morphology within a single quadruped. In contrast to the prevailing focus on planar linkages, this research delves into adopting overconstrained linkages as the limb mechanism. The overconstrained linkages have solid theoretical foundations in advanced kinematics but are under-explored in robotic applications. This study showcases the morphological superiority of Overconstrained Robotic Limbs (ORLs) that can transform into planar or spherical limbs, exemplified using the simplest case of a Bennett linkage as an ORL. We apply Model Predictive Control (MPC) to simulate a range of overconstrained locomotion tasks, revealing its superiority in energy efficiency against planar limbs when considering foothold distances and speeds. From an evolutionary biology perspective, these findings highlight the mechanism distinctions in limb design between reptiles and mammals and represent the first documented instance of ORLs outperforming planar limb designs in dynamic locomotion.
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BibTeX (Download)
@conference{Sun2024OCLocomotion,
title = {Overconstrained Locomotion},
author = {Haoran Sun and Shihao Feng and Bangchao Huang and Zishang Zhang and Ronghan Xu and Guojing Huang and Guangyi Huang and Jiayi Yin and Nuofan Qiu and Hua Chen and Wei Zhang and Jia Pan and Fang Wan and Chaoyang Song},
url = {https://isrr2024.su.domains/},
doi = {10.48550/arXiv.2310.09824},
year = {2024},
date = {2024-12-08},
urldate = {2024-12-08},
booktitle = {International Symposium of Robotics Research (ISRR2024)},
address = {Long Beach, California, USA},
abstract = {This paper studies the design, modeling, and control of a novel robotic limb that produces overconstrained locomotion by employing the Bennett linkage for motion generation, capable of parametric reconfiguration between a reptile- and mammal-inspired morphology within a single quadruped. In contrast to the prevailing focus on planar linkages, this research delves into adopting overconstrained linkages as the limb mechanism. The overconstrained linkages have solid theoretical foundations in advanced kinematics but are under-explored in robotic applications. This study showcases the morphological superiority of Overconstrained Robotic Limbs (ORLs) that can transform into planar or spherical limbs, exemplified using the simplest case of a Bennett linkage as an ORL. We apply Model Predictive Control (MPC) to simulate a range of overconstrained locomotion tasks, revealing its superiority in energy efficiency against planar limbs when considering foothold distances and speeds. From an evolutionary biology perspective, these findings highlight the mechanism distinctions in limb design between reptiles and mammals and represent the first documented instance of ORLs outperforming planar limb designs in dynamic locomotion.},
note = {Accepted},
keywords = {Corresponding Author, ISRR},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {conference}
}
