Proceedings of International Conference on Mechatronics
Kumamoto Japan, 8-10 May 2007
A New Approach for Designing Quadruped Robot
Vo Hoang Duy, Nguyen Thanh Phuong, Suk Min Yoon, Hak Kyeong Kim, and Sang Bong Kim
Dept of Mechanical Engineering
Pukyong National University
San 100, Yongdang-Dong, Nam-Gu, Busan, 608-739
KOREA
*kimsbgpknu.ac.kr
Abstract - Locomotion employed by legged land quadruped is
a complex process. It requires the coordination of multiple
degrees of freedom. In addition, locomotion control is
complex because it requires: adapting to terrain, optimizing
the gait, trying to satisfy multiple constraints, therefore,
designing of quadruped robot must determine several related
factors, which influences the result of the robot. Among of
them, the two most important factors are: the mechanical
structure and leg configuration; method of locomotion and
the control system. This paper proposes a new approach for
designing quadruped robot based on the skeleton of dog and
the two above factors: simple mechanical structure and leg
configuration are designed to simplify the operation of
actuator; quadruped robot can be walked and run in a
bounding gait with a simple control system.
Keywords: quadruped robot, legged locomotion, biologically-
inspired walking robot, kinematics, robot control.
I INTRODUCTION
The first autonomous quadruped robot to move under
computer control was developed by McGhee (1967) and
Frank (1968) [1]. For forty years, since 1967, there have
been many different research trends with many models
respectively to obtain as close as possible of animals.
Among them, there are four research lines for designing
quadruped locomotion model.
The first quadruped robots research line was based on the
anatomy of the dog. lida and Pfeifer (2004) [2] developed
the Puppy robot with the skeleton which consist of twenty-
eight passive joints, and each of which provides 1 rotational
degree of freedom. The body structure of this robot has a
strong resemblance to that of a dog [3]. However, the
mechanical design is complicated and the robot only runs
with a bounding gait.
The second research line is the quadruped robot with the
complex high degree of freedom legs. The advantage of this
robot is the flexible walking motion and similar with animal
gait. Kimura, Fukuoka et al. (1999 to 2004) developed
Tekken I, II and IV [4]. Each leg has a hip pitch joint, a hip
yaw joint, a knee pitch joint, and an ankle pitch joint.
However, the increment in degrees of freedom causes the
complicated leg mechanism, the increasing battery capacity
and weight, the requirement of high performance controller,
special sensors, and the increasing cost [5].
The third research line is opposed to the second line. The
quadruped robot is designed with the reduced degree of
freedom. The mechanical design of this quadruped robot is
very simple, therefore, this robot can overcome the
disadvantage of mechanical complexity which is one of the
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TuA2-B-3
largest sources of mal functions and considerably
increasing cost. Poulakakis, Smith, and Buehler (2003)
developed Scout II. Each leg assembly consists of a lower
and upper leg, connected via a spring to form a compliant
prismatic joint. Thus the four legs of Scout II have 2
degrees of freedom per leg, but only a single actuator [6].
However, the locomotion doesn't walk with a fine grace.
The last research line is the quadruped toy robot. Numerous
quadruped toy robots have been produced. The AIBO are
among the most interesting robots ever constructed (Fujita
and Kitaro 1998). Even though, that is the toy robot but this
robot is considerable complex, having a total 20 DOF and a
large variety of sensors [3]. The AIBO has seen as an
inexpensive quadruped robot for research [7-8], because it
has standard interface, and integrates a computer, vision
system, and articulators in a package vastly cheaper than
conventional research robots.
Another quadruped robot with is reduced degree of freedom
is proposed by lida et al. [5]. Each leg of this robot has a
slider-crank mechanism to reduce 1 degree of freedom.
This robot is similar to Scout II, each leg has two degrees of
freedom which are driven by only one actuator. However,
since the leg has only 1 link, therefore, the robot walking
was not rhythmic.
From the above idea and the advantages of every research
lines, the new quadruped robot model is proposed. There
are two problems which are emphasized in this paper: (1)
how to design the mechanical structure and leg
configuration in order to obtain the three segments model of
animal legs; (2) how to obtain the flexible locomotion
(quadruped robot can be walked and run in a bounding gait)
with a simple control system. These problems are proposed
as a new quadruped robot model.
II OVERVIEW OF THE QUADRUPED ROBOT DESIGN
IDEAS
A Reduced DOF with Flexible Leg
lida et al. [5] reduced a degree of freedom of each leg by
slider-crank mechanism, which is driven by an actuator so
that the tip of the leg rotates along the oval trajectory in the
sagittal plan as shown in Fig. 1 (the hip joint is moved in
this case). This paper also utilizes slider-crank mechanism,
but the hip joint is fixed on the body, therefore, the tip of
leg rotates along the arc trajectory as shown in Fig. 2. The
radius of the arc is the length of leg. There are 4 stages
which are equivalent to 1 round movement. The first stage
moves from A to B; the second stage moves from B to C;
1
 the third stage moves from C to D; and the fourth stage segments: pelvis, femur (segment 1), tibia-fibula (segment
moves from D to A. 2), tarsal (segment 3), and toes [9].
aCtU Cr The basic slow gait of most quadruped is the walk,
f 0
sometimes called the diagonal walk. Figure 4 shows the
walk gait of the dog. Very slow walks may involve 3 legs
on the ground, but normal walks involve 2 legs on the
ground. In this walk, the dog uses diagonally opposing legs,
i.e front left and right back legs move forwards then the
front right and left back legs move and so on.
\ Ifc

fi ^-.4
6,_ t0__

i
0E ,
Figure 4
The walk gait ofthe dog [9]
Figure 1
Looking at Fig. 3 and 4, when the dog stands (Fig. 3) or
Oval trajectory of tip of leg with slider-crank mechanism [5]
walks (Fig. 4) the posture of dog is always in a vertical
V
position. Furthermore, by observation of the walk gait of
dog, segment 1 and segment 2 nearly stay in the straight
l ip Jfolnll line, equivalent to one segment, and only the rotation at
Di B
knee joint of segment 3 is observable. Therefore, the leg of
dog in walk gait can be modeled by two links. The first link
is combined by segment 1 and segment 2, and the second
link is segment 3. Note that, the first link includes two
degree of freedom. Based on these concepts, the proposed
leg is presented. There is also one comparison between
previous quadruped robot and the proposed quadruped
robot to demonstrate this idea.
B < JS
The previous quadruped robots [4, 7], each leg has 2 links
which is not included toes. Comparing with the skeleton of
the leg of dog, link 1 is segment 1, link 2 is combined by
Figure 2 two segments (segment 2 and segment 3), and in general,
The trajectory of tip of leg (link 1) link 2 is longer than link 1 as shown in Fig. 5. Therefore,
Therefore, with this structure, one degree of freedom is three segments model of dog is changed to two links which
decreased. In addition, this configuration also has another has one degree of freedom respectively. With this structure,
advantage which will be discussed in the next section. the posture of quadruped robot is different with the dog. As
the result, the leg of quadruped robot tends towards ahead.
B Leg Structure based on a Musculoskeletal Model of a This posture is similar to the dog which is bending down at
Dog the knee.
Firstly, the skeleton and walk gait of dog are explained in I
this section and then, based on these features, the leg of
quadruped robot is developed. The goal of this legged segment
design is to obtain the result which is similar to three
segments model of animal legs.
2
link

segment 3

Figure 3
The skeleton of the dog [9]
Figure 3 shows the skeleton of the dog. All of the animals
have similar leg-joint anatomies. The front leg is similar to
the rear leg. Looking at Fig. 3, the leg consist of 5 majors
Figure 5
The previous quadruped robot's leg
This paper proposed a new leg structure that the posture is
based on the skeleton of dog leg. According to the skeleton
of dog as shown in Fig. 6, segment 1 and segment 2 are
combined to form link 1, and link 2 is segment 3, so that
link 1 is longer than link 2. Therefore, three segments
model of dog is changed to two links. In this case, the first
link has two degrees of freedom according to slider-crank
mechanism. As the result, this model has only 2 links, but it

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 is equivalent to three segments model of leg. With this
structure, the posture of quadruped robot is more upright
than previous quadruped robots.

segment

link i
2

(ink 2 3
Figure 9
Figure 6 Schematic of quadruped robot
The new quadruped robot's leg Figure 8 and 9 illustrate the picture and schematic of the
Based on the above discussion, the leg of quadruped robot proposed quadruped robot. Each leg has a hip pitch joint, a
is proposed as shown in figure 7a. Beside of hip joint and knee pitch joint, and an ankle pitch joint. Among them,
knee joint, this leg has also a passive ankle joint as shown ankle pitch joint is passive joint which is rotated by spring
in figure 7b. Similar to previous quadruped robots for the mechanism. The two other joints are actuated by DC
purpose of simplicity, all four legs are quite similar. motors. Therefore, the proposed quadruped robot has 8 DC
Combination with the above feature and the spring between motors, two in each leg, which give each leg two degrees of
link 1 and foot, this leg has flexible ability of Tekken and freedom. The physical specification of quadruped robot is
the same posture of Scout II. As a result, this robot can be shown in Table 1, hence, all four legs are similar for the
walked on irregular terrain and can be run in a bounding purpose of simplicity.
gait on flat ground which is similar to Scout II. Table 1
Physical specification of quadruped robot
Parameters Description Values
length of body 500 mm
to distance between two legs 400 mm
/I length of first link 225.5 mm
12 length of second link 100 mm
h height of quadruped robot 315 mm
wVV width of quadruped robot 200 mm
s length of slider 40 mm
m mass of quadruped robot 6.7 kg

III OVERVIEW OF THE QUADRUPED ROBOT CONTROL

IDEAS
(a) (b)
Figure 7 A Walking in Quadruped Robot
The new quadruped robot's leg In section IIA, the slider-crank mechanism has an
C Quadruped Robot advantage which can decrease 1 degree of freedom. In
addition, this mechanism has also another advantage for
As explained in the section ILB, This quadruped robot is robot control in detail as follows.
designed to obtain the posture which is similar to skeleton
of dog. In addition, model is created and it can be walked One gait cycle from A to C is equivalent to 1 round rotation
and run in a bounding gait. of actuator as shown in Fig. 2, therefore, this actuator no
needs to reverse direction. With the above feature, despite
that each leg has 2 actuators, but the actuator of hip joint
controls only speed in locomotion.
Each step cycle of leg is divided into two main stages:
support stage (foot on ground) and transfer stage (foot in
the air). In this section, support stage is considered. Since
leg geometry for 4 legs is similar, the locomotion for all of
them is the same except for the fact that is used diagonally
opposing legs. Therefore, the strategy of control is
established by modeling of each leg as a planar two link
manipulator. Hence, if one assumes a path for quadruped
robot, this robot is controlled to walk along a straight line,
therefore, the 2 dimension is used. The inverse kinematics
Figure 6 problem amounts to find the joint variable 01 and 02 is
The proposed quadruped robot

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 illustrated in Fig. 10. Given the height h, link lengths 11 and C Hardware of Quadruped Robot
12, the height h is defined the path planning for the end As discussed in the above sections, the quadruped robot is
effector (hip in this case). Referring to Fig. 10, h1 and designed for walk and running in bounding gait with a
simple mechanical model. Therefore, hardware of
h2can be calculated as follows quadruped robot is also simple. Furthermore, taking full
paton pl anning advantage of configuration of quadruped robot and utilizing
appropriate sensors, the hardware is modularized and
simplified as functions to perform special control.
The system consists of 3 microcontrollers PIC 1 8F443 1: 1
for master unit and 2 for slave units. Each slave unit is
utilized to control for 2 diagonal legs which include 4 servo
DC motor controllers. Each servo DC motor controller has
2 feedback loops, 1 is current feedback and the other is
position feedback. In order to measure joints angle 01 and
02 in (3) for position feedback, hip and knee joint of each
leg is connected with 2 potentiometers respectively. In this
Figure 10 case, one PIC 1 8F443 1 can control 4 servo DC motors
Inverse kinematics for leg of quadruped robot because this PIC has 4 channels of 14-bit power control
PWM module, and the position feedback is measured by
potentiometer. In addition, 4 touch sensors are used for 4
h1 = 11 sin 01 feet to sense foot on ground. The master unit is
functionalized as main controller communicating between 2
h2 = 12 sin 02 slave units via RS485 communication. 4 touch sensors and
4 potentiometers of hip joints are also connected to master
so that unit. The total configuration of the hardware is shown in
Fig. 11. This configuration shows that the hardware of
h = 11 sin 01 + 12 sin 02 system is very simple. This system is no need special
sensors, for example, force sensor, gyroscope, inclinometer,
also encoder.
Using (2), joint angle 02 can be calculated as follows

|
Moo Curn
joint ° or |sensor
Poito
ensor
Current
sensor
|Position
sensor
|Moto r| _|K.
|joint

02 =sin -Ihl sin

01
(3) | Servo Controller of hip joint Servo Controller of knee joint Touch
l | ~~~~~~motor of RFL l lmotor of RH L l sensHor

@N ~~~~~~~~Slave
Unit 1
/ ~~~~~~~~PIC181`4431Toc
Therefore, the kinematics control uses (3). In ib|Servo Controller of hip joint | |Servo Controller of knee joint | sTenusohr

ll motor LHL motor of LHL of LHL

(3), h , al, a2 are constant, and 02 depends on 01 . As F urrent
discussed in the above of this section, the actuator of hip
I Current SO
Pstion Position
so|no sensor |sensor|Mor
joint is free moving, and from (3), only the actuator of knee
joint is controlled.
In this section, only 1 simple kinematics control method is E
E
Master Unit
PIC18F4431
demonstrated to show the strong point of this quadruped
robot. Comparing with [4], the control technique is
simplified. Hip Motor Current Position Current Position Motor
joint sensor sensor sensor sensor
B Bounding in Quadruped Robot ~t~~
~ I

| Servo Controller of hip joint ervo Controller of knee joint

As discussed in section II, this quadruped robot can also run /| ~~~~~~motorof LFL ll motor of LFL

in a bounding gait. lida et al. [10] proposed the control 9 /

X ~~~~~~~~Slave
Unit 2
~~~~~~~~~~PIC181`4431
scheme which uses a simple sinusoidal position control for Servo Controller of hip joint
| motor RHL
Servo Controller of knee joint
motor of RHL
bounding gait of quadruped robot with no global sensory
feedback. In most of the existing controllers for the z |
M t | ~~~Curren
joint ° or sesor
| sensor
t osition | Current
sensor
|Position
sensor
Moto
°o
bounding behavior, the controllers need to identify the Figure I I
flight/stance phase by using contact detectors on the feet Hardware architecture of quadruped robot
[6].
In this paper, the controller is much simpler compared to IV CONCLUSION
[10]. With the advantage of slider-crank mechanism, each This paper proposes the design and development results of
leg of quadruped robot is oscillated by only constant a quadruped robot. The proposed novel quadruped robot
voltage supplied for motor of hip joint, therefore, the has advantage of flexible locomotion. The posture of
controller needs no to use oscillatory position control in quadruped robot is designed based on skeleton of dog.
bounding gait. Although each leg has two actuators for hip and knee joint,
but the actuator of hip joint no needs to be controlled

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 because of slider-crank mechanism. As the result, the
hardware and control system are simplified. The final goal
of this presented work is to develop a quadruped robot,
which can be walked and run in a bounding gait via a
simple mechanical model.
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