Gait Tracking Control of Quadruped Robot Using Differential Evolution Based Structure Specified Mixed Sensitivity H∞ Robust Control

Abstract

This paper proposed a control algorithm that guarantees gait tracking performance for quadruped robots. During dynamic gait motion, such as trotting, the quadruped robot is unstable. In addition to uncertainties of parameters and unmodeled dynamics, the quadruped robot always faces some disturbances. The uncertainties and disturbances contribute significant perturbation to the dynamic gait motion control of the quadruped robot. Failing to track the gait pattern properly propagates instability to the whole system and can cause the robot to fall. To overcome the uncertainties and disturbances, structured specified mixed sensitivity H∞ robust controller was proposed to control the quadruped robot legs’ joint angle positions. Before application to the real hardware, the proposed controller was tested on the quadruped robot’s leg planar dynamic model using MATLAB. The proposed controller can control the robot’s legs efficiently even under uncertainties from a set of model parameter variations. The robot was also able to maintain its stability even when it was tested under several terrain disturbances.