Robot moving on legs and control method therefor, and relative movement measuring sensor for robot moving on legs
AssigneesSony Corporation, Jinichi Yamaguchi
InventorsYuichi Hattori, Jinichi Yamaguchi
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A legged mobile robot having having at least a plurality of movable legs. This robot includes, in addition to a road surface touching sensor for confirming the ground touching state between the foot part and the road surface, a relative movement measurement sensor for measuring the relative movement between the foot part and the road surface. The robot has its operation controlled on the basis of the amount of relative movement between the foot part and the road surface, so that, when an offset is produced between the intended or scheduled trajectory and the actual trajectory, the operation may be controlled adaptively to execute the robot operation.
Claims26
A legged mobile robot having at least a plurality of movable legs, comprising:
- a relative movement measurement sensor arranged on the foot sole of each movable leg for measuring the amounts of relative movements between the foot part and the road surface;
- and
- a controller for controlling the movements of the legged mobile robot based on the amounts of relative movements between the foot part and the road surface as measured by the relative movement measurement sensor;
- wherein the controller transfers to a safe movement operation pattern for the road surface responsive to the amount of the relative movement between the foot part and the road surface exceeding a preset threshold value during movement on the road surface.
A method for controlling a legged mobile robot having at least a plurality of movable legs, comprising:
- a measurement step of measuring the amounts of relative movements between the foot part and the road surface when the respective movable legs touch the road surface;
- and
- a controlling step of controlling the movements of the legged mobile robot based on the amounts of relative movements between the foot part and the road surface as measured;
- wherein the controller transfers to a safe movement operation pattern for the road surface responsive to the amount of the relative movement between the foot part and the road surface exceeding a preset threshold value during movement on the road surface.
A relative movement measurement sensor for a legged mobile robot for measuring the amount of relative movement between a foot part and the road surface, the sensor being applicable to a foot part of a legged mobile robot having at least a plurality of movable legs comprising:
- imaging means for imaging a ground touching surface of the foot part;
- image processing means for comparing images photographed by the imaging means at a preset time interval;
- and
- calculating means for calculating the amount of the relative movement relative to the road surface of the foot part at the preset time interval based on the results of image comparison by the image processing means.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.