Dynamic torque control of a hydraulic quadruped robot

Legged robots have the potential to serve as versatile and useful autonomous robotic platforms for use in unstructured environments such as disaster sites. They need to be both capable of fast dynamic locomotion and precise movements. However, there is a lack of platforms with suitable mechanical properties and adequate controllers to advance the research in this direction. In this paper we are presenting results on the novel research platform HyQ, a torque controlled hydraulic quadruped robot. We identify the requirements for versatile robotic legged locomotion and show that HyQ is fulfilling most of these specifications. We show that HyQ is able to do both static and dynamic movements and is able to cope with the mechanical requirements of dynamic movements and locomotion, such as jumping and trotting. The required control, both on hydraulic level (force/torque control) and whole body level (rigid model based control) is discussed.