Computing 3-legged Equilibrium Stances in Three-dimensional Gravitational Environments

— Quasistatic multi-legged locomotion consists of a sequence of equilibrium postures where the mechanism supports itself against gravity while moving free limbs to new positions. A posture maintains equilibrium if the contacts can passively support the mechanism against gravity. This paper is concerned with identifying and computing equilibrium postures for mechanisms supported by frictional contacts in a three-dimensional gravitational field. The complex kinematic structure of the mechanism is lumped into a single rigid body B having the same contacts with the environment and a variable center of mass. The identification of equilibrium postures associated with a given set of contacts is reduced to the identification of center-of-mass locations of B that maintain equilibrium stances while all nonlinear frictional constraints are satisfied. Focusing on 3-contact stances, this paper provides an exact formulation for the boundary of the center-of-mass feasible region R as a solution of ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: ICRA
• Authors: Yizhar Or, Elon Rimon
• Keywords: Equilibrium Postures, ICRA 2006, Posture Maintains Equilibrium, Quasistatic Multi-legged Locomotion, Robotics