When and where to step: terrain-aware real-time footstep location and timing optimization for bipedal robots
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Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Online footstep planning is essential for bipedal walking robots, allowing them to walk in the presence of
disturbances and sensory noise. Most of the literature on the topic has focused on optimizing the footstep
placement while keeping the step timing constant. In this work, we introduce a footstep planner capable of
optimizing footstep placement and step time online. The proposed planner, consisting of an Interior Point
Optimizer (IPOPT) and an optimizer based on Augmented Lagrangian (AL) method with analytical gradient descent, solves the full dynamics of the Linear Inverted Pendulum (LIP) model in real time to optimize for footstep location as well as step timing at the rate of 200 Hz. We show that such asynchronous real-time optimization with the AL method (ARTO-AL) provides the required robustness and speed for successful online footstep planning. Furthermore, ARTO-AL can be extended to plan footsteps in 3D, allowing terrain-aware footstep planning on uneven terrains. Compared to an algorithm with no footstep time adaptation, our proposed ARTO-AL demonstrates increased stability in simulated walking experiments as it can resist pushes on flat ground and on a 10◦ ramp up to 120 N and 100 N respectively. Videos2 and open-source code3 are released.
disturbances and sensory noise. Most of the literature on the topic has focused on optimizing the footstep
placement while keeping the step timing constant. In this work, we introduce a footstep planner capable of
optimizing footstep placement and step time online. The proposed planner, consisting of an Interior Point
Optimizer (IPOPT) and an optimizer based on Augmented Lagrangian (AL) method with analytical gradient descent, solves the full dynamics of the Linear Inverted Pendulum (LIP) model in real time to optimize for footstep location as well as step timing at the rate of 200 Hz. We show that such asynchronous real-time optimization with the AL method (ARTO-AL) provides the required robustness and speed for successful online footstep planning. Furthermore, ARTO-AL can be extended to plan footsteps in 3D, allowing terrain-aware footstep planning on uneven terrains. Compared to an algorithm with no footstep time adaptation, our proposed ARTO-AL demonstrates increased stability in simulated walking experiments as it can resist pushes on flat ground and on a 10◦ ramp up to 120 N and 100 N respectively. Videos2 and open-source code3 are released.
Date Issued
2024-09-01
Date Acceptance
2024-06-06
Citation
Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 2024, 179
ISSN
0921-8890
Publisher
Elsevier
Journal / Book Title
Robotics and Autonomous Systems
Volume
179
Copyright Statement
© 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
License URL
Subjects
ADJUSTMENT
Automation & Control Systems
Bipedal walking
Computer Science
Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence
DIVERGENT COMPONENT
LOCOMOTION
Motion planning
Nonlinear optimization
POINT
Robotics
Science & Technology
Technology
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
104742
Date Publish Online
2024-06-13