Controlling a simple model of bipedal walking to adapt to a wide range of target step lengths and step frequencies

Abstract

We tested whether the same control principles that support steady-state walking are sufficient for robust, and rapid gait adaptations over a wide range of step lengths and frequencies. We begin by demonstrating that periodic gaits exist at combinations of step frequency and step length that span the full range of gaits achievable by humans. However, their open-loop stability is not enough to rapidly transition to target gaits. Next, we show that actuating with only one push-off and one hip spring of fixed stiffness cannot fully control the walker in the entire gait space. We solve this by adding a second hip spring with an independent stiffness to actuate the second half of the swing phase. This allowed us to design local feedback controllers that provided rapid convergence to target gaits by making once-per-step adjustments to control inputs. To adapt to a range of target gaits that vary over time, we interpolated between local controllers. This policy performs well, accurately tracking rapidly varying combinations of target step length and step frequency with human-like response times.