Co-simulation of a quadruped robot's mechanical and hydraulic systems based on ADAMS and AMESim

In order to observe the change and fluctuation in flow and pressure of a hydraulic quadruped robot＇s hydraulic system when the robot walks on trot gait,a co-simulation method based on ADAMS and AMESim is proposed. Firstly,the change rule in each swing angle of the hydraulic quadruped robot＇s four legs is analyzed and converted to the displacement change of the hydraulic cylinder by calculating their geometric relationship.Secondly,the robot＇s dynamic model is built in ADAMS and its hydraulic and control system models are built in AMESim. The displacement change of the hydraulic cylinder in the hydraulic system is used as the driving function of the dynamics model in ADAMS,and the driving force of the dynamics model is used as the loads of the hydraulic system in AMESim. By introducing the PID closed-loop control in the control system,the co-simulation between hydraulic system and mechanical system is implemented. Finally,the curve of hydraulic cylinders＇ loads,flow and pressure are analyzed and the results show that they fluctuate highly in accordance with the real situation. The study provides data support for the development of a hydraulic quadruped robot＇s physical prototype.

Joint space compliance control for a hydraulic quadruped robot based on force feedback

In the realm of quadruped robot locomotion,compliance control is imperative to handle impacts when negotiating unstructured terrains.At the same time,kinematic tracking accuracy should be guaranteed during locomotion.To meet both demands,ajoint space compliance controller is designed,so that compliance can be achieved in stance phase while position tracking performance can be guaranteed in swing phase.Unlike operational space compliance control,the joint space compliance control method is easy to implement and does not depend on robot dynamics.As for each joint actuator,high performance force control is of great importance for compliance design.Therefore,a nonlinear PI controller based on feedback linearization is proposed for the hydraulic actuator force control.Besides,an outer position loop（compliance loop）is closed for each joint.Experiments are carried out to verify the force controller and compliance of the hydraulic actuator.The robot leg compliance is assessed by a virtual prototyping simulation.

Force Control Compensation Method with Variable Load Stiffness and Damping of the Hydraulic Drive Unit Force Control System

Each joint of hydraulic drive quadruped robot is driven by the hydraulic drive unit（HDU）, and the contacting between the robot foot end and the ground is complex and variable, which increases the difficulty of force control inevitably. In the recent years, although many scholars researched some control methods such as disturbance rejection control, parameter self-adaptive control, impedance control and so on, to improve the force control performance of HDU, the robustness of the force control still needs improving. Therefore, how to simulate the complex and variable load characteristics of the environment structure and how to ensure HDU having excellent force control performance with the complex and variable load characteristics are key issues to be solved in this paper. The force control system mathematic model of HDU is established by the mechanism modeling method, and the theoretical models of a novel force control compensation method and a load characteristics simulation method under different environment structures are derived, considering the dynamic characteristics of the load stiffness and the load damping under different environment structures. Then, simulation effects of the variable load stiffness and load damping under the step and sinusoidal load force are analyzed experimentally on the HDU force control performance test platform, which provides the foundation for the force control compensation experiment research. In addition, the optimized PID control parameters are designed to make the HDU have better force control performance with suitable load stiffness and load damping, under which the force control compensation method is introduced, and the robustness of the force control system with several constant load characteristics and the variable load characteristics respectively are comparatively analyzed by experiment. The research results indicate that if the load characteristics are known, the force control compensation method presented in this paper has positive compensation effects on the load characteristics variation, i.e., this method decreases the effects of the load characteristics variation on the force control performance and enhances the force control system robustness with the constant PID parameters, thereby, the online PID parameters tuning control method which is complex needs not be adopted. All the above research provides theoretical and experimental foundation for the force control method of the quadruped robot joints with high robustness.

Force-controlled Compensation Scheme for P-Q Valve-controlled Asymmetric Cylinder used on Hydraulic Quadruped Robots

Under the requirement of the force controller of hydraulic quadruped robots,the goal of this work is to accurately track the force commands at the level of the hydraulic drive unit.The main contribution focuses on the development of a force-controlled compensation scheme,which is specifically aimed at the key issues affecting the hydraulic quadrupedal locomotion.With this idea,based on a P-Q valve-controlled asymmetric cylinder,we first establish a mathematical model for the hydraulic drive unit force control system.With the desired force commands,a force feed-forward algorithm is presented to improve the dynamic performance of the system.Meanwhile,we propose a disturbance compensation algorithm to reduce the influence induced by external disturbances due to foot-ground impacts.Afterwards,combining with a variable gain PI controller,a series of experiments are implemented on a force control performance test platform to verify the proposed scheme.The results demonstrate that the force-controlled compensation scheme has the ability to notably improve the force tracking accuracy,reduce the response time and redundant force.

Optimal Energy Efficiency Based High-speed Flying Control Method for Hydraulic Quadruped Robot

Herein,a control method based on the optimal energy efficiency of a hydraulic quadruped robot was proposed,which not only realizes the optimal energy efficiency of flying trot gait but also ensures the stability of high-speed movement.Concretely,the energy consumption per unit distance was adopted as the energy efficiency evaluation index based on the constant pressure oil supply characteristics of the hydraulic system,and the global optimization algorithm was adopted to solve the optimal parameters.Afterward,the gait parameters that affect the energy efficiency of quadruped were analyzed and the mapping relationship between each parameter and energy efficiency was captured,so as to select the optimum combination of energy efficiency parameters,which is significant to improve endurance capability.Furthermore,to ensure the stability of the high-speed flying trot gait motion of the hydraulic quadruped robot,the active compliance control strategy was employed.Lastly,the proposed method was successfully verified by simulations and experiments.The experimental results reveal that the flying trot gait of the hydraulic quadruped robot can be stably controlled at a speed of 2.2 m/s.