176

IEEE

TRANSACTIONS

ON SYSTEMS,

MAN,

AND

CYBERNETICS,

VOL.

SMC-9, NO. 4,

APRIL

1979

Adaptive Locomotion of a Multilegged Robot

over Rough Terrain
ROBERT B. McGHEE,

MEMBER, IEEE, AND

GEOFFREY I. ISWANDHI

Abstract-Although the off-road mobility characteristics of

wheeled or tracked vehicles are generally recognized as being inferior

to those of man and cursorial animals, the complexity of the

joint-coordination control problem has thus far frustrated attempts
to achieve improved vehicular terrain adaptability through the
application of legged locomotion concepts. Nevertheless, the evident
superiority of biological systems in this regard has motivated a
number of theoretical studies over the past decade which have now
reached a state of maturity sufficient to permit the construction of
experimental computer-controlled adaptive walking machines. At
least two such vehicles are known to have recently demonstrated
legged locomotion over smooth hard-surfaced terrain. This paper is
concerned with an extension of the present theory of limb coordination for such machines to the case in which the terrain includes
regions not suitable for weight-bearing and which must consequently
be avoided by the control computer in deciding when and where to
successively place the feet of the vehicle. The paper includes a
complete problem formalization, a heuristic algorithm for solution of
the problem thus posed, and a preliminary evaluation ofthe proposed
algorithm in terms of a computer simulation study.

INTRODUCTION
U P TO THE present time, nearly all vehicles for off-road
locomotion have made use of systems of wheels or
tracks for support and propulsion. This is in striking
contrast to the locomotion of man and cursorial animals in
which articulated systems of levers, individually powered
and flexibly coordinated, are used to achieve this function.
Vehicle designers have been aware for some time that the
principles involved in natural "legged" locomotion systems
result in superior mobility characteristics due to their
inherently greater adaptability to terrain irregularities and
to the fundamentally different nature of the interaction of
such systems with the supporting terrain in comparison to
wheeled or tracked vehicles [1]. Unfortunately, until recently, the complexity of the joint coordination control
problem has frustrated attempts to apply these principles to
obtain vehicles with off-road mobility characteristics comparable to those of living systems. While a theory for such
adaptive walking machines has gradually evolved over the
past decade [2], the attainment of the necessary joint
coordination function by an on-board computer was not
feasible prior to the introduction of microprocessors [3]. In

Manuscript received March 29, 1978; revised November 20, 1978. This
work was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant
ENG74-21664.
R. B. McGhee is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Ohio
State University, Columbus, OH 43210.
G. I. Iswandhi was with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Ohio
State University, Columbus, OH. He is now with the Mead Paper
Company, Chillicothe, OH 45601.

Fig. 1. Front view of OSU hexapod vehicle showing control computer i n

background. Vehicle length = 1.3 m, width = 1.4 m, total weight exclu
sive of cables = 103 kg,
response to the emergence of such devices, at least two
experimental hexapod vehicles have been constructed for
the purpose of supporting research on sensors and on
computer hardware and software organization for automatic limb motion coordination [4]-[7]. Fig. 1 illustrates one of
these machines.
Detailed consideration of the problem of automatic joint
motion coordination reveals a natural hierarchical structure
in which the highest levels are concerned with goal attainment, the intermediate levels involve motion planning, and
the lower levels involve motion execution [2], [3], [8]. This
paper is concerned with one ofthe more critical intermediate
level problems, namely, the determination of an optimal
schedule for the lifting and placing of the legs of a vehicle
relative to the supporting terrain. In what follows, a summary of previously available results concerning this problem
is presented together with a new problem formalization and
a heuristic solution which has shown promising behavior in
simulation studies.

PROBLEM STATEMENT AND SUMMARY OF

PREVIOUS WORK
A considerable amount of prior work has been devoted to
the leg sequencing problem for the special case of straightline constant-speed locomotion over level terrain [9]-[12].
Central to this work has been the notion of a finite characterization of leg states in which each leg of a machine or animal
is idealized to a two-state device, namely, either the state of
being on the ground (1-state) or in the air (0-state) [13], [14].
This concept leads to the following definitions.

0018-9472/79/0400-0176$00.75 (C 1979 IEEE

177

MCGHEE AND ISWANDHI: ADAPTIVE LOCOMOTION OF MULTILEGGED ROBOT

Definition 1: The support state of a K-legged locomotion

system is a binary row vector y(t), such that at any time t,
yi(t) = 1 if leg i is in contact with the supporting surface and
y(t) = 0 otherwise.
In general, then, the problem to be addressed in this paper
is the determination of a sequence of support states for a
given locomotion system over a particular terrain which is
optimal with respect to some specified criterion. A periodic
solution to this problem is usually referred to as a gait [11],

[12], [14]-[16].'

In all but one prior study [17], the criterion used for
support state sequence optimization has been one which
relates to the degree of static stability of the system under
consideration. A precise specification ofthis criterion, called
the longitudinal stability margin, is provided by the following
three definitions.
Definition 2: The support pattern associated with a given
support state is the convex hull (minimum area convex
polygon) of the point set in a horizontal plane which
contains the vertical projections of the feet of all supporting
legs [16].
Evidently, support patterns involve geometrical as well as
temporal aspects of locomotion. For periodic gaits and
straight-line locomotion, both of these attributes can be
incorporated in a vector of initial foot positions and leg
phasing relationships called a "kinematic gait formula"
[15], [16]. Given this or any other complete parametric
description of the kinematics of gait, the following definition
formalizes the intuitive concept of static stability.
Definition 3: Consider any support state sequence with
kinematics specified by a suitable parameter vector p(t). Let
q(t) be the location of the vertical projection of the vehicle
center of gravity onto any horizontal plane. Then the
support pattern determined by p(t) is statically stable at time
t if and only if q(t) is contained in its interior.
Finally, based upon the above concepts, two measures of
the degree of static stability associated with a given support
state sequence are provided by the following.
Definition 4: For a particular support state sequence and
associated kinematic parameter vector p(t), suppose that at
time t the corresponding support pattern is statically stable.
Then the support state longitudinal stability margin s(t) is
defined as the shortest distance from q(t) to the front or rear
boundary of the support pattern as measured in the direction of travel. If the support state sequence is periodic, then
c(K), the gait longitudinal stability margin [16], is defined as
u(K) = min s(t)
0<t< T

where T is the gait period and K is a kinematic gait formula.

Fig. 2 illustrates all of the above definitions for an optimally
stable quadruped gait [16].2
1 Fig. 2 illustrates a typical quadruped gait. For this gait, the successive
support states, beginning with Phase 1 and extending through Phase 6, are
(1110), (1011), (1111), (1101), (0111), and (1111).
2 Of course overall stability of motion is possible in gaits containing
statically unstable phases, and in fact examples are easily found in man
and higher animals. However, due to the relatively early stage of development of legged vehicles, such modes of locomotion are not treated in this
paper.

Phase 4: Left Reor Leg Transfer

Phasel: Right Rear Leg Transfer

Phose5: Left Front Leg Transfer

Phase2: Right Frant Leg Transfer

3

Phase 3: All Legs Supporting

Phase6: All Legs Supporting

Fig. 2. Support patterns for successive phases of typical optimal

quadruped crawl gait illustrating static stability. Arrows indicate total
motion of vertical projection of center of gravity during each phase.
Distance S is longitudinal stability margin for this gait.

For periodic support state sequences, it is possible, at least

in principle, to examine the space of all kinematic gait
formulas to seek a family of solutions which is optimal with
respect to the longitudinal stability margin criterion. In
order to obtain a meaningful answer to this problem, it has
been found necessary to assume that all legs of the machine
or animal operate with the same duty factor ,B, where this
quantity is defined as the ratio of support time to cycle time
for any leg [14]. If it is further assumed that the legs of the
system are evenly spaced in right-left pairs along a longitudinal motion axis, and that each foot contacts the ground at
a single point, then the optimal gaits are known for each
allowable value of / for the cases of four, six, and eight legs
[10]-[12], [16], [18]. Except for some anomalies for small
values of ,B for eight-legged locomotion [12], these optimal
solutions are all members of the family known as wave gaits
[19], in which each gait is characterized by a forward wave of
stepping actions on each side of the body with a half-cycle
phase shift between the two members of any right-left pair.
This family is used by natural quadrupeds for very low speed
locomotion, by hexapods (insects) in all speed ranges, and is
commonly employed by terrestrial octopods [19], [20]. The
gait shown in Fig. 2 provides an example of a wave gait for a
quadruped system.
More recently, Kugushev and Jaroshevskij [17] have
suggested that the mathematical approach used in the study
of periodic support state sequences for straight-line locomotion can be extended to include a more general case in which
nonperiodic solutions known as "free gaits" may be expected. Specifically, in [17], a partial problem formalization
is presented in which a trajectory is specified in advance for
the motion of the center of gravity of a legged system over a
given terrain containing certain regions which are unsuitable for support. This unsuitability could be due to excessive
slope, soft soil conditions, holes or rocks, etc. The remainder
of this paper is devoted to a completion ofthe formalization
of this problem together with a description of one heuristic
algorithm for its solution. A summary of results obtained
from a computer simulation study employing the proposed
algorithm is also included.

178

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SYSTEMS, MAN, AND CYBERNETICS,

THE FREE GAIT PROBLEM

A formal statement of the free gait problem in a computationally tractable form requires a number of further
definitions as follows.
Definition 5: The terrain to be traversed is divided in
square cells. Each cell is either permitted (denoted with 0) or
forbidden (denoted with 1).
Definition 6: The motion trace [17] of a vehicle consists of
the desired trajectory for the vehicle center of gravity. It is
composed of successive circular arcs specified by either a
human operator or by some type of automatic system. The
vehicle longitudinal axis is assumed to be tangent to the
motion trace at the vehicle center of gravity.
Since the motion trace is assumed to be specified in
advance, the terrain around it should not contain obstacles
so large that they cannot be walked over by the vehicle.3 If
such obstacles should be found along the motion trace, upon
encountering them, the vehicle must stop. It is then the
human operator or control computer's responsibility to
define a new motion trace. While future research may
produce algorithms for climbing over large threedimensional obstacles, this case is not treated in this paper.
The two computer-controlled legged vehicles known to
the authors both employ a main drive axis (azimuth axis) for
each leg which is parallel to the vertical axis of the vehicle.
This arrangement, which can be seen in Fig. 1, motivates the
next two definitions.
Definition 7: Each vehicle leg has a reachable area in thee
form of a sector of an annulus. This area is specified by four
parameters: minimum angle fmin, maximum angle l max'
minimum radius rmin, and maximum radius rmax. Reachable
areas move as the body moves.
Definition 8: A cell is reachable by a leg at a given time if
the center of that cell is covered by the current reachable
area of that leg. Feet are always placed in the center of
reachable cells.
Overlapping reachable areas raise interference problems.
That is, a given leg may exclude regions of the reachable area
of legs adjacent to it. Calculation of the excluded areas is not
easy and is dependent on where the legs are at a given time.
One way of dealing with this problem is to avoid it
altogether by eliminating a priori all overlapping reachable
areas so that each leg has a distinct region that can be
accessed only by it and not by any other leg. This will be
done in the present work, although it is recognized that in
the future the leg interference problem should be dealt with
in a more general way to insure that the full capability of a
given vehicle can be utilized during free gait generation.
To provide a concrete example of some of the above ideas,
the geometry of the machine shown in Fig. 1 will be assumed.
While the global problem of choosing a good motion trace (usually
referred to as the "navigation" problem) is of itself of considerable interest,
this paper is concerned only with the local problem of foot placement
(which arises only in connection with legged locomotion) and assumes
that the navigation problem is solved either by human intelligence or by
some higher level automatic system. The interested reader is referred to
[8], [21], and [22] for some approaches to the difficult problem of robot
navigation.

VOI

SMC-9, No. 4. APRI1 1979

Direction of Motion

,-Reochoble Areo of Leg 2

Excluded Area
f or Leg 3
--

Reachable

Area for Leg 3

Front Boundary Line

Excluded Areo for Leg 2

Rear Boundary Line

Excluded Area
for l eg 3

XV"

Reachable Area for

Leg 6

Fig. 3. Schematic top view of vehicle showing leg numbering and boundary lines for foot placing. Legs 1, 4, and 5 are shown in their rest
configuration, while reachable and excluded areas are shown for legs 2,
3, and 6.

To solve the interference problem, two boundary lines

perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the vehicle can be
specified. For the purposes of this paper, the front boundary
line has been arbitrarily placed one-quarter of the body
length in front of the vehicle center of gravity. The rear
boundary line is similarly placed one-quarter body length
behind the vehicle center. The front legs are constrained to
be in front of the front boundary line, while the middle legs
can only be between the two boundary lines, and the rear
legs must be behind the rear boundary line. This arrangement is illustrated in Fig. 3. These constraints eliminate the
interference problem entirely and motivate the following
two definitions.
Definition 9: The excluded area for the front legs is that
part of their reachable areas behind the front boundary line.
The excluded area for the middle legs is the portion of their
reachable areas in front of the front boundary line and
behind the rear boundary line. The excluded area for the rear
legs is the reachable area in front of the rear boundary line.
Excluded areas for the example system considered in this
paper are also shown in Fig. 3.
Definition 10: A terrain cell i is afoothold [17] Fijfor legj if
and only if:
a) cell i is a permitted cell,
b) the center of cell i lies in a reachable area of leg.j, and
c) the center of cell i is not in the excluded area of leg j.
For the present example, the form of the excluded areas is
such that at any given time each cell can be a foothold of at
most one leg. Moreover, each leg has a set of footholds of
which not more than one can be in use at any given time. This
situation suggests the next definition.
Definition 11: A foothold F1j becomes a support point Si
for leg j whenever the foot of leg j is placed in its center.
The set of footholds for leg j is thus seen to be the set of all
potential support points for that leg.
At this point, it is necessary to introduce some measure of
the relative desirability of footholds to permit realization of
an algorithm for selection of support points associated with
successive support state sequences. The next two definitions
provide one such measure.

MCGHEE AND ISWANDHI: ADAPTIVE LOCOMOTION OF MULTILEGGED ROBOT

Definition 12: The existence segment of a foothold is the

largest segment of the motion trace such that when the
projection of the vehicle center of gravity is on this segment,
cell i is a foothold Fij for leg j [17].
Informally, the existence segment of a foothold is that
portion of the motion trace over which permitted cell i is a
potential support point for leg j.
In determining the existence segment, two cases must be
distinguished, namely, the preview case in which the motion
trace is known for some time into future and the nonpreview
case in which the motion trace is given only up to present
time. In the latter circumstance, computation of the existence segment can be accomplished by assuming that the
current vehicle turning radius will be maintained for an
indefinite time into the future. In either case, a quantitative
indication of the usefulness of a particular foothold is given
by the following definition.
Definition 13: The kinematic margin for foothold Fii is the
arc length along the motion trace from the current vertical
projection of the center of gravity of the vehicle to the
forward end of the existence segment for Fii.
The kinematic margin of a foothold evidently relates to
how long a foot can be on a given cell before the leg reaches
its kinematic limit. Clearly this notion also applies to each
support point Sj, since every support point is also a foothold.
For a particular circular arc of the motion trace, relative to
the vehicle, the terrain moves in a circular arc concentric
with the motion trace segment. A foothold Fij will thus trace
a circular arc in the opposite direction to the vehicle. This
observation proves to be useful in calculating both the
existence segment and the kinematic margin for a given
foothold.
It is possible that even though the kinematic margins ofall
support points are greater than zero, a vehicle may nevertheless be forced to change its support state in order to
maintain static stability. This observation leads to the
following definitions.
Definition 14: The stability segment of a given support
pattern is the largest segment of the motion trace such that
when the projection of the vehicle center of gravity is on this
trace, the vehicle is statically stable.
Combining several of the above ideas permits the following definition of a concept central to the solution of the free
gait problem.
Definition 15: The existence segment ofa support pattern is
a maximal segment of the motion trace such that [17]:

a) the kinematic margins of all support points are greater

than zero, and

b) the locomotion system is statically stable.

Evidently, movement of a legged locomotive system along a
prescribed motion trace in a statically stable manner is
possible if and only if there exists a sequence of support

patterns and corresponding support states such that the

existence segments ofsuccessive support patterns overlap [17].
The next section of this paper describes a heuristic algorithm
for finding such sequences when they exist.

179

AN ALGORITHM FOR FREE GAIT GENERATION

As stated above, the problem of free gait generation can be
viewed as one of finding a sequence of support points such
that there is an overlap of the existence segmnent of each
support state with that of the support state which proceeded
it. Evidently, in general, such sequences are not unique. Thus
determination of a specific sequence requires either imposition of additional constraints or introduction of some type
of global optimization criterion. These considerations motivate the following two definitions.
Definition 16: A support state sequence is feasible for
motion along a specified motion trace over a given terrain if
and only if there exists an associated sequence of support
points such that the existence segments of successive support
patterns overlap.
Definition 17: An optimal support point sequence for
motion along a specified motion trace over a given terrain is
one such that:
a) the corresponding support state sequence is feasible,
and
b) some specified criterion function is maximized
(minimized).
The optimal support state sequence is the sequence determined by the optimal support point sequence.
It is easy to imagine many different criteria for optimizing
support point sequences. For example, the minimal stability
margin over the whole motion trace could be maximized.
Minimizing the maximum load placed on any leg might be
important in traversing soft soils. If energy can be related to
kinematics, then minimizing the total energy to traverse the
entire motion trace might be important. The choice of a
specific criterion clearly depends upon the characteristics of
a given vehicle and the nature of its mission. Very likely, in
any realistic situation, some combination of all of these
factors and still other criteria would represent a more
suitable basis for optimization.
In many circumstances, the combinatorial complexity of
the problem of determining optimal support state sequences
may be so great as to prohibit its computational solution in
an acceptable period of time. While discrete dynamic programming [23] could perhaps be used to find the optimal
sequence if the total number of terrain cells is not too great, a
different approach is taken here. Specifically, as in [17], a
suboptimal sequence will be sought by making use of an
algorithm which determines the support pattern sequence
only one stage forward rather than over the whole trajectory. While such an approach might be expected to give
rather poor results, preliminary computer simulation studies have shown that this is not the case, providing that the
motion trace has been appropriately selected. That is, if the
motion trace is chosen so that a large number of feasible
support state sequences exist, then the algorithm to be
presented is typically capable of finding one such sequence.
The departure of such sequences from optimality is yet to be
determined.
Fig. 4 is a flowchart for the free gait algorithm utilized in
this research. This algorithm is similar to that described in

180

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SYSTEMS,

MAN,

AND CYBERNETICS, VOL.

SMC-9, NO. 4a APR11 1979

Fig. 4. Flowchart for free gait algorithm.

[17], although details differ. To understand its operation, it is

useful to recognize that, at each iteration, one of four

decisions can be made:
1) Maintain the current support state.
2) Lift a leg.
3) Place a leg.
4) Halt.
Careful examination of each of the corresponding paths in
Fig. 4 shows that this algorithm tends to maximize the
number of legs in the air and thus sacrifices stability for
adaptability. It can also be seen that a halt state can occur
prematurely. In such a circumstance, the algorithm is said to
be deadlocked. In practical terms, the only solution for a
deadlocked condition (cul-de-sac) is for the operator or
navigation system to back up the vehicle for a suitable
distance and then either alter the algorithm or specify a new
motion trace.
Clearly, a simple change in the tests for static stability
would allow modification of the algorithm of Fig. 4 to
enforce a minimum value for stability margin. This would
tend to increase the average number of legs in a supporting
state and would certainly increase the probability of a
deadlock. It is also evident that more complex changes in

algorithm logic are possible such as, for example, placing

legs whenever possible and lifting legs only when deadlock is
imminent. These alternatives have not been explored as yet,
but remain a subject for future research.
The underlying logic for the algorithm of Fig. 4 can be
summarized as follows. Providing that the vehicle remains
stable, legs are lifted so as to maximize the minimum value of
the kinematic margin over all supporting legs. This in turn
tends to extend forward the existence segment of each
support state to a maximal extent, thereby increasing the
likelihood that a new support state with an overlapping
existence segment can be found. If the vehicle stabilitv is
imperiled, then the algorithm corrects this situation by
placing a leg when this is possible. Whenever a leg is placed,
among those legs which make the vehicle stable, the one with
the largest kinematic margin is utilized. If leg placing is for
the purpose of allowing a leg to be lifted in the next cycle of
the algorithm, this is not done unless a net increase in the
minimal value of the kinematic margin over all supporting
legs results. This later feature appears to be missinlg from the
Kugushev and Jaroshevskij algorithm [17]. Likewise, it is
not apparent that in [17] the placing of legs to restore vehicle
stability is governed by maximization of the minimum
kinematic margin. Both of these features are believed to be

MCGHEE AND ISWANDHI: ADAPTIVE LOCOMOTION OF MULTILEGGED ROBOT

.

...

...........

p0
n.....

1..

b) t = 1. 5 sec.

O.:..
.

_n

a) t = 0.0 sec.

.0 0.

*...0......

...

0 ..

.0

...

..

.0
~~~~~~~~~~.0

c) t = 3.0 sec.

0.

d) t

4.5 sec.
.

.0

..

000
El 0

..

t.. = 6.0 sec.

..

f) t = 7.5 sec.

Fg5.Photographs of six representative phases of vehicle support as

presented on display panel during simulated locomotion over terrain
with forbidden cells.

quite important to the success of the free gait algorithm in

finding feasible support state sequences over terrain containing a large proportion of forbidden cells.
As a final remark, it should be noted that leg placing
requires an exhaustive search over every foothold of every
leg not in a supporting state. This requirement places a lower
bound on the size of terrain cells for real-time application of
free gait algorithms.
SIMULATION RESULTS

A simulation program including both a representation of

the vehicle and terrain and the free gait algorithm of Fig. 4
has been written as part of this research. This program is
implemented on a DEC-10 computer operating in a timeshaird mode and utilizing an AG-60 plasma panel display as
an output device. The display is equipped with a touch-panel
sensor which allows the user to designate terrain cells as
forbidden by simply touching them. A cell can be restored to
the status of a permitted cell by simply touching it once
again during the terrain specification portion of program
execution. Permitted cells are displayeda al dot designating
the cell center. while forbidden cells are outlined without the
inclusion of such a dot. Fig. 5(a) is a photograph of a typical
simulated terrain created by this process. This figure also
shows a simplified depiction of the vehicle as seen from the
top. The dimensions used to represent this vehicle and its

181

reachable areas correspond to those of the hexapod system

illustrated in Fig. 1. The convention used in the display is
that only supporting legs are shown, since the position of
legs in the air has no bearing on vehicle stability or
kinematic limits.
After the terrain and vehicle turning radius have been
specified by the operator, iterative execution of the free gait
algorithm begins. Fig. 5(a)-(f) shows six representative
phases of such a simulation experiment as presented on the
plasma panel display. It can be seen, as expected, that the
algorithm under consideration attempts to keep a maximal
number of legs in the air with the minimum of three
supporting legs occurring in Fig. 5(e). Many different terrain
conditions have been investigated in this research, and
the results presented in Fig. 5 are typical. In particular,
support sequences are always nonperiodic and, in fact, are
quite unpredictable when the terrain includes more than a
very small percentage of forbidden cells. It is noteworthy
that no terrain examples have been found as yet in which the
system becomes deadlocked, unless the vehicle is required to
traverse a region in which there is a set of contiguous forbidden cells constituting an area comparable in size to the
vehicle body. Whenever such regions are avoided by proper
path selection, the algorithm presented seems to be very
effective, even when only substantially less than half of the
terrain is composed of permitted cells. Similar results are
reported in [17].
The program to realize the algorithm of Fig. 4 was written
in Fortran and required about 250 statements. Execution
was somewhat faster than real time for a vehicle speed of
about 0.5 ft/s. Since the computer was used in a time-shared
mode and execution also required display updating, it is
believed that a small minicomputer (or possibly even a
microprocessor) could solve the support state sequence
problem on-line for a vehicle similar to the one illustrated in
Fig. 1.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
This paper has presented a formalization of the problem
of choosing a sequence of support points for a legged vehicle
to enable it to negotiate terrain in which some regions are
unsuitable for support. The formal problem can be viewed as
a rather complicated game somewhat akin to solving a
maze, but with more complex constraints governing successive moves. The game is "won" if a sequence of support
points is found which permits the vehicle to move from its
starting point to its goal along a specified trajectory without
stepping on forbidden cells and without becoming unstable.
It is clear that biological systems are able to solve this
problem with great efficiency as is evidenced, for example, by
the behavior of cursorial quadrupeds in rapid motion over
very irregular terrain.
Experience with other simulation studies and with actual
vehicles has shown that, while human beings are naturally
suited to solve the support sequence problem for biped
locomotion, this capability is not readily extended to additional pairs of legs [2], [24], [25]. It appears that, instead, this
task must be relegated to an automatic system if acceptable
performance is to be attained in a legged vehicle when

182

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SYSTEMS, MAN, AND CYBERNETICS, VOL.

traversing very difficult terrain. One algorithm capable of

solving this problem has been presented in this paper
together with some typical results. The authors do not
suggest that this algorithm is in any sense optimal, although
it is believed that some improvements have been made over
the only previous algorithm proposed for this problem [17].
Rather, the importance of this work lies in the complete
formalization of the problem and the demonstration that
automatic solution in real time is feasible with a modestsized computer.
It is hoped that the presentation of these results will
interest others sufficiently to stimulate further research,
which surely should yield both better algorithms and better
means for quantifying the performance of a given algorithm.
It is the authors' belief that continued research on this
problem in parallel with work on other aspects of the joint
coordination control problem [2] can lead to an entirely new
class of vehicles which may exhibit large performance
advantages over existing vehicles in traversing very irregular
terrain and in moving over soft soils. Although further basic
research is needed before any practical machines can be
constructed, the possible advantages ofthis type of vehicle in
applications such as arctic transport, mining, agriculture,
forestry, fire-fighting, explosive ordnance disposal, and even
in unmanned ocean-floor or planetary exploration, provide
incentives for such work.
REFERENCES
[1] M. G. Bekker, Introduction to Terrain-Vehicle Systems. Ann Arbor,
MI: Univ. Michigan Press, 1969.
[2] R. B. McGhee, "Control of legged locomotion systems," Proc. Eighteenth Joint Automatic Control Conf., San Francisco, CA, pp. 205215, June 1977.
[3] D. E. Orin, R. B. McGhee, and V. C. Jaswa, "Interactive computercontrol of a six-legged robot vehicle with optimization of stability,
terrain adaptability, and energy," Proc. 1976 IEEE Conf. Decision and
Control, Clearwater Beach, FL, Dec. 1976.
[4] J. R. Buckett, "Design of an on-board electronic joint control system
for a hexapod vehicle," M.S. thesis, Ohio State Univ., Mar. 1977.
[5] C. S. Chao, "A software system for on-line control of a hexapod
vehicle utilizing a multiprocessor computing structure," M.S. thesis,
Ohio State Univ., Aug. 1977.
[6] R. L. Briggs, "Real-time digital control of an electrically powered
vehicle leg using vector force feedback," M.S. thesis, Ohio State
Univ., Dec. 1977.

SMC-9, NO. 4, APRIL 1979

[7] D. E. Okhotsimski, V. S. Gurfinkel, E. A. Devyanin, and A. K. Platonov, "Integrated walking robot development," presented at 1977
Engineering Foundation Conf. Cybernetic Models of the Human Neuromuscular System, Henniker, NH, Aug. 1977.
[8] D. E. Okhotsimski and A. K. Platonov, "Perceptive robot moving in
3D world," Proc. IV Int. Joint Conf. Artificial Intelligence, Tbilisi.
Georgian SSR, USSR, Sept. 1975.
[9] S. S. Sun, "A theoretical study of gaits for legged locomotion
systems," Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State Univ., Mar. 1974.
[10] R. B. McGhee and S. S. Sun, "On the problem of selecting a gait for a
legged vehicle," Proc. VI IFAC Symp. Automatic Conitrol in Space,
Armenian S.S.R., USSR, Aug. 1974.
[11] A. P. Bessonov and N. V. Umnov, "The analysis of gaits in six legged
vehicles according to their static stability," Proc. Symp. Theory and
Practice of Robots and Manipulators, International Centre for
Mechanical Sciences, Udine, Italy, Sept. 1973.
[12]
, "Choice of geometric parameters of walking machines," On
Theory and Practice of Robots and Manipulators, Polish Scientific
Publishers, Warsaw, 1976, pp. 63--74.
[13] R. Tomovic, "A general theoretical model of creeping displacement."
Cybernetica, IV, pp. 98---107 (English translation), 1961.
[14] R. B. McGhee, "Some finite state aspects of legged locomotion,'
Mathematical Biosciences, vol. 2, no. 1/2, pp. 67-84, Feb. 1968.
[15] M. Hildebrand, "Symmetrical gaits of horses," Science, vol. 150, pp.
701-708, Nov. 1965.
[16] R. B. McGhee and A. A. Frank, "On the stability properties of
quadruped creeping gaits," Mathematical Biosciences, vol. 3, no. 3/4.
pp. 331-351, Oct. 1968.
[17] E. 1. Kugushev and V. S. Jaroshevskij, "Problems of selecting a gait
for an integrated locomotion robot," Proc. Fourth Int. Conf Artificial
Intelligence, Tbilisi, Georgian SSR, USSR, pp. 789-793, Sept. 1975.
[18] R. B. McGhee, "Robot locomotion," Neural Control of Locomotion,
R. M. Herman et al., Eds. New York: Plenum Press. 1976, pp.
237-264.
[19] D. M. Wilson, "Insect walking," Annual Review of Entomology, vol.
11, pp. 103--121, 1966.
[20]
', "Stepping patterns in Tarantula spiders," J. Experimental Biology, vol. 47, pp. 133-151, 1967.
[21] P. E. Hart, N. J. Nilsson, and B. Raphael, "A formal basis for the
heuristic determination of minimum cost paths," IEEE Trans.
Systems Sci. Cybern., vol. SSC-4, no. 2, pp. 100-107, July 1968.
[22] P. J. Blatman, "Environmental modeling and model preprocessing
for a self-contained mobile robot," Proc. 1975 IEEE SMC Conf., San
Francisco, CA, Sept. 1975.
[23] G. Hadley, Nonlinear and Dynamic Programming. Reading, MA:
Addison-Wesley, 1964.
[24] D. E. Okotsimski et al., Problems of Constructing and Modelling the
Motion of an Operator-Controlled Walking Machine, Preprint No.
125, Institute of Applied Mathematics, Academy of Sciences of the
USSR, Moscow, 1974 (in Russian).
[25] R. S. Mosher, "Exploring the potential of quadruped," SAE Paper
No. 690191, presented at the Int. Automotive Engineering Conf.,
Detroit, MI, Jan. 1969.