A collocation method for real-time walking pattern generation

This paper presents a new real-time walking pattern generator that calculates center of mass trajectories from footstep locations. Key features are the calculation of reference torque patterns by quadratic programming and the solution of the equations of motion by spline collocation. Fast real-time planning is combined with offline optimisation of free parameters based on a comprehensive simulation of the closed loop system to automatically generate optimally tuned walking controllers. The effectiveness of the proposed method is shown using a dynamics simulation of the robot JOHNNIE.