IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2018 - 23
Lessons from Engineering:
A Live Demonstration
of the ATRIAS Biped
Walking
and Running
with Passive
Compliance
Robot: ©istockphoto.com/Leafedge
sneakeRs-©istockphoto.com/ sntpzh
backgRound-image Licensed by ingRam pubLishing
By Christian Hubicki, Andy Abate, Patrick Clary, Siavash Rezazadeh, Mikhail Jones, Andrew Peekema,
Johnathan Van Why, Ryan Domres, Albert Wu, William Martin, Hartmut Geyer, and Jonathan Hurst
B
iological bipeds have long been thought to take
advantage of compliance and passive dynamics to
walk and run, but realizing robotic locomotion in
this fashion has been difficult in practice. Assume
The Robot Is A Sphere (ATRIAS) is a bipedal robot
designed to take advantage of the inherent stabilizing effects
that emerge as a result of tuned mechanical compliance
(Table 1). In this article, we describe the mechanics of the
biped and how our controller exploits the interplay bet-
ween passive dynamics and actuation to achieve robust
locomotion. We outline our development process for the
incremental design and testing of our controllers through
rapid iteration.
By show time at the Defense Advanced Research Pro-
jects Agency (DARPA) Robotics Challenge (Figure 1),
ATRIAS was able to walk with robustness, locomote in ter-
rain from asphalt to grass to artificial turf, and traverse
changes in surface height as large as 15 cm without planning or
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2017.2783922
Date of publication: 10 May 2018
1070-9932/18©2018IEEE
visual feedback. Furthermore, ATRIAS can accelerate from
rest, transition smoothly to a running gait, and reach a top
speed of 2.5 m/s (9 km/h). Reliably achieving such dynamic
locomotion in an uncertain environment required rigorous
development and testing of the hardware, software, and
control algorithms. This endeavor culminated in seven live
shows of ATRIAS walking and running, with disturbances
and without falling, in front of a live audience at the DARPA
Robotics Challenge.
Approaches to Biped Control
Walking and running on two legs is an enduring challenge
in robotics. Avoiding falls becomes especially tricky when
the terrain is uncertain in both its geometry and rigidity. A
promising approach to achieving stable control is to relin-
quish some authority to purposeful passive dynamics, per-
haps by adding mechanical compliance [1] or removing
actuators entirely [2]. If the machine's unactuated dynam-
ics are thoughtfully designed, they can passively attenuate
disturbances and require smaller adjustments from the
controller [33].
september 2018
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IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE
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23
IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2018
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2018
Contents
IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2018 - Cover1
IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2018 - Cover2
IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2018 - Contents
IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2018 - 2
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