Gait planning for versatile motion of a six legged robot

This paper describes a solution to the problem of planning a leg motion for a six legged robot when smooth versatile motion commands of its body are given. The well-known wave gait for a longitudinally symmetric robot is generalized to solve the omnidirectional gait planning problem for a radially symmetric six legged robot. The algorithm can handle any combination of translational and rotational motions for a variable crab angle condition as long as the rates of speed and crab angle are moderate. Guaranteeing the maximum duty factor for any given commanded motion, this solution optimizes the stability margin of the robot. The foot trajectory planning algorithm dynamically generates a smooth foot trajectory as a function of the instantaneous body motions