A new versatile hydraulically powered quadruped robot ( HyQ ) has been developed to serve as a platform to study not only highly dynamic motions, such as running and jumping, but also careful navigation over very rough terrain. HyQ stands 1 m tall, weighs roughly 90 kg, and features 12 torque-controlled joints powered by a combination of hydraulic and electric actuators. The hydraulic actuation permits the robot to perform powerful and dynamic motions that are hard to achieve with more traditional electrically actuated robots. This paper describes design and specifications of the robot and presents details on the hardware of the quadruped platform, such as the mechanical design of the four articulated legs and of the torso frame, and the configuration of the hydraulic power system. Results from the first walking experiments are presented, along with test studies using a previously built prototype leg.

This paper presents the design of the hydraulically actuated quadruped robot HyQ2Max. HyQ2Max is an evolution of the 80 kg agile and versatile robot HyQ. Compared to HyQ, the new robot needs to be more rugged, more powerful and extend the existing locomotion skills with self-righting capability. Since the robot's actuation system has an impact on many aspects of the overall design/specifications of the robot (e.g., payload, speed, torque, overall mass, and compactness), this paper will pay special attention to the selection and sizing of the joint actuators. To obtain meaningful joint requirements for the new machine, we simulated seven characteristic motions that cover a wide range of required behaviors of an agile rough terrain robot, including trotting on rough terrain, stair climbing, push recovery, self-righting, etc. We will describe how to use the obtained joint requirements for the selection of the hydraulic actuator types, four-bar linkage parameters, and valve size. Poorly sized actuators may lead to limited robot capabilities or higher cost, weight, energy consumption, and cooling requirements. The main contributions of this paper are: 1) a novel design of an agile quadruped robot capable of performing trotting/crawling over flat/uneven terrain, balancing, and self-righting; 2) a detailed method to find suitable hydraulic cylinder/valve properties and linkage parameters with a specific focus on optimizing the actuator areas; and 3) to the best knowledge of the authors, the most complete review of hydraulic quadruped robots.

Planning whole-body motions while taking into account the terrain conditions is a challenging problem for legged robots since the terrain model might produce many local minima. Our coupled planning method uses stochastic and derivatives-free search to plan both foothold locations and horizontal motions due to the local minima produced by the terrain model. It jointly optimizes body motion, step duration and foothold selection, and it models the terrain as a cost-map. Due to the novel attitude planning method, the horizontal motion plans can be applied to various terrain conditions. The attitude planner ensures the robot stability by imposing limits to the angular acceleration. Our whole-body controller tracks compliantly trunk motions while avoiding slippage, as well as kinematic and torque limits. Despite the use of a simplified model, which is restricted to flat terrain, our approach shows remarkable capability to deal with a wide range of noncoplanar terrains. The results are validated by experimental trials and comparative evaluations in a series of terrains of progressively increasing complexity.

Traditional motion planning approaches for multi-legged locomotion divide the problem into several stages, such as contact search and trajectory generation. However, reasoning about contacts and motions simultaneously is crucial for the generation of complex whole-body behaviors. Currently, coupling theses problems has required either the assumption of a fixed gait sequence and flat terrain condition, or non-convex optimization with intractable computation time. In this paper, we propose a mixed-integer convex formulation to plan simultaneously contact locations, gait transitions and motion, in a computationally efficient fashion. In contrast to previous works, our approach is not limited to flat terrain nor to a pre-specified gait sequence. Instead, we incorporate the friction cone stability margin, approximate the robot's torque limits, and plan the gait using mixed-integer convex constraints. We experimentally validated our approach on the HyQ robot by traversing different challenging terrains, where non-convexity and flat terrain assumptions might lead to sub-optimal or unstable plans. Our method increases the motion generality while keeping a low computation time.

Robots with legs and arms have the potential to support humans in dangerous, dull or dirty tasks. A major motivation behind research on such robots is their potential versatility . However, these robots come at a high price in mechanical and control complexity. Hence, until they can demonstrate a clear advantage over their simpler counterparts, robots with arms and legs will not fulfill their true potential. In this paper, we discuss the opportunities for versatile robots that arise by actively controlling the mechanical impedance of joints and particularly legs. In contrast to passive elements such as springs, active impedance is achieved by torque-controlled joints allowing real-time adjustment of stiffness and damping. Adjustable stiffness and damping in real-time is a fundamental building block towards versatility. Experiments with our 80 kg hydraulic quadruped robot HyQ demonstrate that active impedance alone (i.e. no springs in the structure) can successfully emulate passively compliant elements during highly dynamic locomotion tasks (running, jumping and hopping); and that no springs are needed to protect the actuation system. Here we present results of a flying trot, also referred to as a running trot. To the best of the authors’ knowledge this is the first time a flying trot has been successfully implemented on a robot without passive elements such as springs. A critical discussion on the pros and cons of active impedance concludes the paper. This article is an extension of our previous work presented at the International Symposium on Robotics Research (ISRR) 2013.