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Visually guided gait modifications for stepping over an obstacle: a bio-inspired approach

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Abstract

There is an increasing interest in conceiving robotic systems that are able to move and act in an unstructured and not predefined environment, for which autonomy and adaptability are crucial features. In nature, animals are autonomous biological systems, which often serve as bio-inspiration models, not only for their physical and mechanical properties, but also their control structures that enable adaptability and autonomy—for which learning is (at least) partially responsible. This work proposes a system which seeks to enable a quadruped robot to online learn to detect and to avoid stumbling on an obstacle in its path. The detection relies in a forward internal model that estimates the robot’s perceptive information by exploring the locomotion repetitive nature. The system adapts the locomotion in order to place the robot optimally before attempting to step over the obstacle, avoiding any stumbling. Locomotion adaptation is achieved by changing control parameters of a central pattern generator (CPG)-based locomotion controller. The mechanism learns the necessary alterations to the stride length in order to adapt the locomotion by changing the required CPG parameter. Both learning tasks occur online and together define a sensorimotor map, which enables the robot to learn to step over the obstacle in its path. Simulation results show the feasibility of the proposed approach.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Keir Pearson, Arthur Prochazka and Trevor Drew for their suggestions related to the work. This work is funded by FEDER Funding supported by the Operational Program Competitive Factors—COMPETE and National Funding supported by the FCT—Portuguese Science Foundation through projects PEst-OE/EEI/LA0009/2011 and PTDC/EEACRO/100655/ 2008. Pedro Silva is supported by Grant CRO-BI-2012(2), and Vitor Matos is supported by SFRH/BD/62047/2009.

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  1. Centro Algoritmi, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal

    Pedro Silva, Vitor Matos & Cristina P. Santos

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  1. Pedro Silva
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Correspondence to Cristina P. Santos.

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Silva, P., Matos, V. & Santos, C.P. Visually guided gait modifications for stepping over an obstacle: a bio-inspired approach. Biol Cybern 108, 103–119 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00422-014-0586-6

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