Quasi-static rolling control of the rolling disk biped robot

Motivated by the need for greater speed, adaptability and efficiency in legged robots, a class of hybrid robots have been developed which hybridize rolling locomotion with legged locomotion. Herein we present a quasi-static rolling control law for the hybrid climbing/rolling robot the rolling disk biped. We provide experimental results comparing speed and energy consumption data for quasi-static rolling versus walking. We show that rolling can significantly improve energy efficiency over walking-by as much as a factor of 3.9.