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Register a new userReceding-Horizon Perceptive Trajectory Optimization for Dynamic Legged Locomotion with Learned Initialization
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Added by
Oliwier Melon
Publication date
2021
fields
Informatics Engineering
and research's language is
English
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To dynamically traverse challenging terrain, legged robots need to continually perceive and reason about upcoming features, adjust the locations and timings of future footfalls and leverage momentum strategically. We present a pipeline that enables flexibly-parametrized trajectories for perceptive and dynamic quadruped locomotion to be optimized in an online, receding-horizon manner. The initial guess passed to the optimizer affects the computation needed to achieve convergence and the quality of the solution. We consider two methods for generating good guesses. The first is a heuristic initializer which provides a simple guess and requires significant optimization but is nonetheless suitable for adaptation to upcoming terrain. We demonstrate experiments using the ANYmal C quadruped, with fully onboard sensing and computation, to cross obstacles at moderate speeds using this technique. Our second approach uses latent-mode trajectory regression (LMTR) to imitate expert data - while avoiding invalid interpolations between distinct behaviors - such that minimal optimization is needed. This enables high-speed motions that make more expansive use of the robots capabilities. We demonstrate it on flat ground with the real robot and provide numerical trials that progress toward deployment on terrain. These results illustrate a paradigm for advancing beyond short-horizon dynamic reactions, toward the type of intuitive and adaptive locomotion planning exhibited by animals and humans.
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We present a novel control strategy for dynamic legged locomotion in complex scenarios, that considers information about the morphology of the terrain in contexts when only on-board mapping and computation are available. The strategy is built on top of two main elements: first a contact sequence task that provides safe foothold locations based on a convolutional neural network to perform fast and continuous evaluation of the terrain in search of safe foothold locations; then a model predictive controller that considers the foothold locations given by the contact sequence task to optimize target ground reaction forces. We assess the performance of our strategy through simulations of the hydraulically actuated quadruped robot HyQReal traversing rough terrain under realistic on-board sensing and computing conditions.
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