Multimodal robot combines walking and flying with unified control
Design and Control of a Multimodal Legged-Aerial Robot Through Separate Control Contraction Metrics
Robotics
Summary
Robots that can both walk and fly face many challenges because these two ways of moving need very different kinds of control and hardware. The authors designed a four-legged robot that can do both, using special control techniques for walking and flying separately and then combining them smoothly. Their new method adjusts the robot’s movements to work well whether it is walking or flying. They tested their design in simulations and real-life experiments to show it works reliably and helps the robot move in versatile ways.
What this means in practice
- •For robotic system engineers: Develop robots able to switch seamlessly between walking and flying for flexible mobility in complex environments.
- •For drone delivery teams: Implement thruster-assisted walking to extend delivery robots' operational range in areas where flying alone is impractical.
Authors
Kaushik Venkatesh Krishnamurthy, Eric Sihite, Alireza Ramezani, Morteza Gharib
Abstract
The integration of dynamic legged locomotion and aerial mobility offers versatility that is deterred by challenges in payload distribution, actuation, and the contrasting requirements of both domains. In this paper, we present the design and operation of a multimodal quadrupedal aerial-legged robot. The presence of legged aerial systems also allows for thruster-assisted legged locomotion, which we make possible with a unified control framework using Control Contraction Metrics (CCM). We search for separate domain-specific contraction metrics for walking and flight independently offline and unify them using an online energy-based Control Lyapunov Function Quadratic Program (CLF QP). This enables optimal, cross-domain control allocation, which we show using simulations. We also show experimental results that validate the mechanical viability of our hardware and the paradigm of thruster-assisted trotting. The stability of said experiments motivates the deployment of the control framework for multimodal operations.