MSR Thesis Defense
July
29
Mon
Monday, July 29
3:30 pm to 4:30 pm
3305 Newell-Simon Hall
3:30 pm to 4:30 pm
3305 Newell-Simon Hall
Enhancing Bipedal Locomotion With Reaction Wheels
Abstract:
Legged robot hardware has become more accessible in the last ten years. However, there is still a dearth of low-cost hardware platforms that are open-source and easy to build. With recent developments in accessible manufacturing methods, such as 3D printing, it has become possible to design and manufacture parts without relying on precision machining. We address a gap in open-source legged-robot platforms by developing a low-cost biped design based on one initially published by the Open Dynamic Robot Initiative that can be built using primarily 3D printed parts. To enhance the ability of bipedal robots to recover from disturbances and perform dynamic motions, we have added a reaction-wheel actuator to control the pitch angle of the robot, enabling attitude stabilization. We also develop a model-predictive control algorithm that we demonstrate in disturbance-recovery scenarios in simulation. All hardware designs and control software for our system is fully open source and available online.
Committee:
Prof. Zachary Manchester, chair
Prof. Aaron Johnson
Swaminathan Gurumurthy