Design and Control of High-performance Hydraulic Quadruped and Centaur Robots
Legged Robots are expected to assist and replace human operators for dangerous, dull and dirty tasks in challenging environments. As demonstrated by legged animals and humans, legs are ideal for moving over very rough terrain, where wheeled and tracked vehicles cannot go. To build versatile, high-performance legged
machines it is crucial to select the most suitable actuation technology, that allows high-bandwidth force control, powerful motions and impact robustness. Hydraulic actuation meets these requirements.
In this presentation, Claudio Semini will review the achieved results of IIT's Dynamic Legged Systems lab with the HyQ robot, that is able to perform highly dynamic motions as well as carefully planned walking over rough terrain. He will then introduce the design of HyQ2Max, the new version of HyQ and a new hydraulic Centaur robot that combines 4 legs with 2 arms.
Michele Focchi will then present his research related to whole body control of robots with arms and legs, focusing on the optimization of contact forces.