Handling gait disturbances with asynchronous timing
AssigneeBoston Dynamics, Inc.
InventorsKevin Blankespoor, Benjamin Stephens, Marco da Silva
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An example method may include i) detecting a disturbance to a gait of a robot, where the gait includes a swing state and a step down state, the swing state including a target swing trajectory for a foot of the robot, and where the target swing trajectory includes a beginning and an end; and ii) based on the detected disturbance, causing the foot of the robot to enter the step down state before the foot reaches the end of the target swing trajectory.
Claims18
A computer-implemented method when executed by data processing hardware of a quadruped robot causes the data processing hardware to perform operations comprising:
- determining whether a first foot of a first leg of the quadruped robot contacts a ground surface earlier than expected based on an estimated swing time for the first leg;
- and
- determining that a second foot of a second leg of the quadruped robot contacts the ground surface after determining that the first foot contacts the ground surface earlier than expected;
- and
- based on determining that the first foot contacts the ground surface earlier than expected and the second foot contacts the ground surface, transitioning control of third and fourth legs of the quadruped robot from a stance phase to a swing phase.
A quadruped robot comprising:
- a first pair of legs comprising a first leg having a first foot associated with a first leg and a second leg having a second foot associated with the second leg;
- a second pair of legs comprising a third leg having a third foot associated with the third leg and a fourth leg having a fourth foot associated with the fourth leg;
- and
- a control system comprising a processor and memory in communication with the processor, the memory storing program instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:
- determining whether the first foot of the first leg of the quadruped robot contacts the ground surface earlier than expected based on an estimated swing time for the first leg,
- determining that the second foot of the second leg of the quadruped robot contacts the ground surface after determining that the first foot of the first leg contacts the ground surface earlier than expected, and
- based on determining that the first foot contacts the ground surface earlier than expected and the second foot contacts the ground surface, transitioning control of the second pair of legs of the quadruped robot from a stance phase to a swing phase.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.