Gait Regulation for Bipedal Locomotion

This work explores regulation of forward speed, step length, and slope walking for the passive-dynamic class of bipedal robots. Previously, an energy-shaping control for regulating forward speed has appeared in the literature; here we show that control to be a special case of a more general time-scaling control that allows for speed transitions in arbitrary time. As prior work has focused on potential energy shaping for fully actuated bipeds, we study in detail the shaping of kinetic energy for bipedal robots, giving special treatment to issues of underactuation. Drawing inspiration from features of human walking, an underactuated kinetic-shaping control is presented that provides efficient regulation of walking speed while adjusting step length. Previous results on energetic symmetries of bipedal walking are also extended, resulting in a control that allows regulation of speed and step length while walking on any slope. Finally we formalize the optimal gait regulation problem and propose a dynamic programming solution seeded with passive-dynamic limit cycles. Observations of the optimal solutions generated by this method reveal further similarities between passive dynamic walking and human locomotion and give insight into the structure of minimum-effort controls for walking.