Entanglements like vines and branches in natural settings or cords and pipes in human spaces prevent mobile robots from accessing many environments. Legged robots should be effective in these settings, and more so than wheeled or tracked platforms, but naive controllers quickly become entangled and stuck. In this paper we present a method for proprioception aimed specifically at the task of sensing entanglements of a robot's legs as well as a reaction strategy to disentangle legs during their swing phase as they advance to their next foothold. We demonstrate our proprioception and reaction strategy enables traversal of entanglements of many stiffnesses and geometries succeeding in 14 out of 16 trials in laboratory tests, as well as a natural outdoor environment.
翻译:自然设置中的藤蔓和树枝,或人类空间中的电线和水管等纠缠结构,都会阻碍移动机器人进入许多环境。四肢运动机器人应该比轮式或履带式平台更有效,在这些环境中移动,但是朴素的控制器很快就会被纠缠卡住。在本文中,我们提出了一种针对机器人腿部感知的本体感知方法,以及一种反应策略,用于摆脱其摆动阶段被纠缠的腿部,以便其向前推进到下一个支撑点。我们在实验室测试中展示了我们的本体感知和反应策略,在许多刚度和几何结构的纠缠环境中成功实现了14次试验,同时在室外自然环境中也取得了成功。