Adaptive walking control of biped robots using online trajectory generation method based on neural oscillators

This work concerns biped adaptive walking control on irregular terrains with online trajectory generation. A new trajectory generation method is proposed based on two neural networks. One oscillatory network is designed to generate foot trajectory, and another set of neural oscillators can generate the trajectory of Center of Mass (CoM) online. Using a motion engine, the characteristics of the workspace are mapped to the joint space. The entraining property of the neural oscillators is exploited for adaptive walking in the absence of a priori knowledge of walking conditions. Sensory feedback is applied to modify the generated trajectories online to improve the walking quality. Furthermore, a staged evolutionary algorithm is developed to tune system parameters to improve walking performance. The developed control strategy is tested using a humanoid robot on irregular terrains. The experiments verify the success of the presented strategy. The biped robot can walk on irregular terrains with varying slopes, unknown bumps and stairs through autonomous adjustment of its walking patterns.