A Hybrid of Impulsive and Continuous Control for Kneeless Bipedal Walking

The objective of this paper is to develop a simple active control scheme for a kneeless bipedal walking robot. Our control objective is to generate asymptotically stable walking gait pattern by impulsive control actions at the feet of the robot. Consequently, a nonlinear impulsive controller is designed for the hybrid dynamics of the system that can actively generate a wide range of desired ballistic walking gaits on a flat surface. Furthermore, the role of continuous control in the closed loop dynamics of the system is investigated. We show a combination of continuous and impulsive control can maintain a non-scuffing bipedal walking on arbitrary ground slope angles. Our results show that the controlled systems successfully generate active gaits without significant degradation in the energetic efficiencies of the equivalent passive systems.