Planning dynamic behaviors for legged robots is a challenging task because the robot is subject to strong dynamic constraints due to its floating base (i.e. it can fall). It needs to take into account intermittent contacts with the environment and apply contact forces in order to move.
In this project, we address the problem of planning dynamic movements for legged robots that take into account the kino-dynamic constraints of the robot. We use optimal control techniques to find solutions that are dynamically feasible and to help synthesize feedback controllers to stabilize these plans. In particular, we are looking at the problem from three different points of view:
Herzog, A., Rotella, N., Schaal, S., Righetti, L.
Trajectory generation for multi-contact momentum-control
In IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids), November 2015 (inproceedings)