Beyond Inverted Pendulums: Task-optimal Simple Models of Legged Locomotion

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Chen, Yu-Ming, Hu, Jianshu, Posa, Michael
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2023
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author Chen, Yu-Ming
Hu, Jianshu
Posa, Michael
author_facet Chen, Yu-Ming
Hu, Jianshu
Posa, Michael
contents Reduced-order models (ROM) are popular in online motion planning due to their simplicity. A good ROM for control captures critical task-relevant aspects of the full dynamics while remaining low dimensional. However, planning within the reduced-order space unavoidably constrains the full model, and hence we sacrifice the full potential of the robot. In the community of legged locomotion, this has lead to a search for better model extensions, but many of these extensions require human intuition, and there has not existed a principled way of evaluating the model performance and discovering new models. In this work, we propose a model optimization algorithm that automatically synthesizes reduced-order models, optimal with respect to a user-specified distribution of tasks and corresponding cost functions. To demonstrate our work, we optimized models for a bipedal robot Cassie. We show in simulation that the optimal ROM reduces the cost of Cassie's joint torques by up to 23% and increases its walking speed by up to 54%. We also show hardware result that the real robot walks on flat ground with 10% lower torque cost. All videos and code can be found at https://sites.google.com/view/ymchen/research/optimal-rom.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2301_02075
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Beyond Inverted Pendulums: Task-optimal Simple Models of Legged Locomotion
Chen, Yu-Ming
Hu, Jianshu
Posa, Michael
Robotics
Reduced-order models (ROM) are popular in online motion planning due to their simplicity. A good ROM for control captures critical task-relevant aspects of the full dynamics while remaining low dimensional. However, planning within the reduced-order space unavoidably constrains the full model, and hence we sacrifice the full potential of the robot. In the community of legged locomotion, this has lead to a search for better model extensions, but many of these extensions require human intuition, and there has not existed a principled way of evaluating the model performance and discovering new models. In this work, we propose a model optimization algorithm that automatically synthesizes reduced-order models, optimal with respect to a user-specified distribution of tasks and corresponding cost functions. To demonstrate our work, we optimized models for a bipedal robot Cassie. We show in simulation that the optimal ROM reduces the cost of Cassie's joint torques by up to 23% and increases its walking speed by up to 54%. We also show hardware result that the real robot walks on flat ground with 10% lower torque cost. All videos and code can be found at https://sites.google.com/view/ymchen/research/optimal-rom.
title Beyond Inverted Pendulums: Task-optimal Simple Models of Legged Locomotion
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.02075