Position and altitude tracking control for toe support phase of biped walking robot

No paper has been published on the active use of the foot toe of biped walking robots. In other words, the sole of the supporting leg is usually assumed to completely contact the ground. To maintain this condition, the robot walking has a restriction such as the maximum walking speed limitation. If the point contact of the toe to the ground through walking is available, a variety of walking can be realized. In this paper, a new control method for biped robots, in which the contact of the sole to the ground becomes a point contact, is proposed. The COM (Center of Mass) and swing leg can track the desired path and each heel joint angle can be controlled by the proposed controller while a biped walking robot is following a forward failing. Therefore, the motion of the body does not need to be limited to quiet motion. The proposed method is verified by simulation and experimental results with "Ken," a six-joint DOF biped robot. (C) 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.