Navigating a large-scaled robot in unknown and cluttered height-constrained environments is challenging. Not only is a fast and reliable planning algorithm required to go around obstacles, the robot should also be able to change its intrinsic dimension by crouching in order to travel underneath height-constrained regions. There are few mobile robots that are capable of handling such a challenge, and bipedal robots provide a solution. However, as bipedal robots have nonlinear and hybrid dynamics, trajectory planning while ensuring dynamic feasibility and safety on these robots is challenging. This paper presents an end-to-end autonomous navigation framework which leverages three layers of planners and a variable walking height controller to enable bipedal robots to safely explore height-constrained environments. A vertically actuated spring-loaded inverted pendulum (vSLIP) model is introduced to capture the robot’s coupled dynamics of planar walking and vertical walking height. This reduced-order model is utilized to optimize for long-term and short-term safe trajectory plans. A variable walking height controller is leveraged to enable the bipedal robot to maintain stable periodic walking gaits while following the planned trajectory. The entire framework is tested and experimentally validated using a bipedal robot Cassie. This demonstrates reliable autonomy to drive the robot to safely avoid obstacles while walking to the goal location in various kinds of height-constrained cluttered environments.

More from our Archive

• DOI: 10.1142/s0219455423400278 2023

  Seismic Response Control of a Nonlinear Tall Building Under Mainshock–Aftershock Sequences Using Semi-Active Tuned Mass Damper

  Liangkun Wang, Ying Zhou, Weixing Shi

• DOI: 10.1093/nargab/lqad070 2023

  Single-cell reference mapping to construct and extend cell-type hierarchies

  Lieke Michielsen, Mohammad Lotfollahi, Daniel Strobl, Lisa Sikkema, Marcel J T Reinders, Fabian J Theis, Ahmed Mahfouz

• DOI: 10.1142/s0218348x23401813 2023

  A NUMERICAL STUDY OF COMPLEX DYNAMICS OF A CHEMOSTAT MODEL UNDER FRACTAL-FRACTIONAL DERIVATIVE

  ZAREEN A. KHAN, KAMAL SHAH, BAHAAELDIN ABDALLA, THABET ABDELJAWAD

• DOI: 10.1063/5.0147231 2023

  Perspectives on adaptive dynamical systems

  Jakub Sawicki, Rico Berner, Sarah A. M. Loos, Mehrnaz Anvari, Rolf Bader, Wolfram Barfuss, Nicola Botta, Nuria Brede, Igor Franović, Daniel J. Gauthier, Sebastian Goldt, Aida Hajizadeh, Philipp Hövel, Omer Karin, Philipp Lorenz-Spreen, Christoph Miehl, Jan Mölter, Simona Olmi, Eckehard Schöll, Alireza Seif, Peter A. Tass, Giovanni Volpe, Serhiy Yanchuk, Jürgen Kurths

• DOI: 10.1111/biom.13907 2023

  Optimal test procedures for multiple hypotheses controlling the familywise expected loss

  Willi Maurer, Frank Bretz, Xiaolei Xun

• DOI: 10.34133/cbsystems.0051 2023

  Integrated Design Fabrication and Control of a Bioinspired Multimaterial Soft Robotic Hand

  Samuel Alves, Mihail Babcinschi, Afonso Silva, Diogo Neto, Diogo Fonseca, Pedro Neto

• DOI: 10.1063/5.0146808 2023

  A simple modeling framework for prediction in the human glucose–insulin system

  Melike Sirlanci, Matthew E. Levine, Cecilia C. Low Wang, David J. Albers, Andrew M. Stuart

• DOI: 10.1111/mafi.12413 2023

  Deep order flow imbalance: Extracting alpha at multiple horizons from the limit order book

  Petter N. Kolm, Jeremy Turiel, Nicholas Westray

• DOI: 10.1142/s0219455424500937 2023

  Size-Dependent Electro-Thermal Buckling Analysis of Flexoelectric Microbeams

  Yaghoub Tadi Beni

• DOI: 10.1177/02783649231187670 2023

  Autonomous navigation of underactuated bipedal robots in height-constrained environments

  Zhongyu Li, Jun Zeng, Shuxiao Chen, Koushil Sreenath