Natural Gait Generation Techniques for Multi-bodied Isolated Mechanical Systems

This paper investigates how to generate cyclic gaits for multi-bodied isolated mechanical systems whose configuration space is represented by a trivial fiber bundle. We describe how to generate gaits in the base space of the fiber bundle, or the shape space of the robot on which we assume full control. Such gaits are guaranteed to generate a non-zero motion along the fiber space, i.e., a net change in the position of the robot, while making sure that the robot’s shape is unchanged after a complete cycle. The gait generation technique presented in this paper is intuitive; it involves dividing the base space into well defined regions and devising a set of simple rules on how to generate curves in such regions. Not only do such curves guarantee non-zero position change but also do allow for gait optimization.