On stabilizing periodic orbits for robotic systems

This paper focuses on a control approach for legged robots with fast gaits. The method consists in a sliding mode based control extended the consideration of system energy. The control objective is then to perform stable trajectories or controlled limit cycles (CLC), by means of energy regulation with respect to a shaped nominal representation (implicitly related to system trajectories). In this paper, we establish some theoretical results. Then, some capabilities of the approach are illustrated through examples related to spring-mass systems usually considered to characterize some legged robots behaviors.