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Efficient computation of force distributions for walking machines on rough terrain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2009

J. F. Gardner
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (USA)

Summary

The force distribution problem for legged vehicles on rough terrain is considered. A general formulation of the force distribution problem in which the feet contact the ground at arbitrary inclinations, is presented. Three techniques are used to solve the force distribution problem for three representative tasks. The Moore-Penrose pseudo-inverse, a numerical optimization scheme and an approximation to the optimal solution are described. The optimal scheme computes the forces which minimize the maximum ratio of tangential foot reaction force to foot normal force. The approximation is used to achieve certain desirable characteristics of the optimal scheme with considerably less computational resources.

Type
Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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