• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC
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• v.42 no.3 s.303
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• pp.1-10
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• 2005

This paper proposes a novel fault-tolerant gait planning of a hexapod robot considering kinematic constraints. The failure concerned in this paper is a locked joint failure for which a joint in a leg cannot move and is locked in place. It is shown that the conventional fault-tolerant gait of a hexapod robot for forward walking on even terrain may be fallen into deadlock, depending on the configuration of the failed leg. For coping with such deadlock situation, a novel fault-tolerant gait planning is proposed. It can avoid deadlock by adjusting the position of the foot trajectory, and has the same leg sequence and stride length as those of the conventional fault-tolerant gait. To demonstrate the superiority of the proposed scheme, a case study is presented in which a hexapod robot, having walked over even terrain before a locked joint failure, could avoid deadlock and continue its walking by the proposed fault-tolerant gait planning.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC
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• v.43 no.5 s.311
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• pp.19-27
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• 2006

Improvement in gait stability of fault-tolerant gaits for quadruped robots is addressed in this paper. The previously developed fault-tolerant gait gives a quadruped robot the ability to continue its walk against the occurrence of a leg failure. But it has a drawback of having marginal gait stability, which may lead to tumbling when the robot body's center of gravity is perturbed. To overcome such a drawback, a novel fault-tolerant gait is presented in this paper that generates positive stability margin against a locked joint failure, in which a joint of a leg is locked in a known place. Positive stability margin is obtained by adjusting foot positions of supporting legs between leg swing sequences. The advantages of the proposed fault-tolerant gait are discussed by comparing with the previous gait in terms of gait stability, stride length and gait velocity.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC
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• v.43 no.3 s.309
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• pp.16-24
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• 2006

In this paper, fault-tolerant gait planning of a hexapod robot for walking over irregular terrain is presented. The failure concerned in this paper is a locked joint failure for which a joint in a leg cannot move and is locked in place. Based on the previously proposed fault-tolerant tripod gait for walking over even terrain, fault-tolerant follow-the-leader(FTL) gaits are proposed for a hexapod robot with a failed leg to be able to walk over two-dimensional rough terrain, maintaining static stability and fault tolerance. The proposed FTL gait can have maximum stride length for a given foot position of a failed leg, and yields better ditch crossing ability than the previously developed gaits. The applicability of the proposed FTL gait is verified by using computer graphics simulations.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.457-463
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• 2009

In this paper, a novel foot force distribution algorithm for hexapod walking robots is presented. The considered hexapod robot has fault-tolerant tripod gaits with a failed leg in locked-joint failure. The principle of the proposed algorithm is to minimize the slippage of the leg that determines the stability margin of the fault-tolerant gaits. The fault-tolerant tripod gait has a drawback that it has less stability margin than normal gaits. Considering this drawback, we use the feature that there are always three supporting legs, and by incorporating the theory of Zero-Interaction Force, we calculate the foot forces analytically without resort to any optimization technique. In a case study, the proposed algorithm is compared with a conventional foot force distribution method and its applicability is demonstrated.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 1999.11a
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• pp.707-711
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• 1999

In this paper, an algorithm of fault tolerant gaits for a quadruped robot is proposed for the purpose of tolerating a locked joint failure. The robot can continue its walking after a locked failure occurs to a joint of a leg by the proposed algorithm. In particular, a periodic gait is proposed as a special form of the proposed algorithm and its existence and efficiency are analytically proven.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers D
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• v.55 no.7
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• pp.319-326
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• 2006

This paper proposes a novel fault-tolerant gait for Quadruped robots using energy stability margins. The previously developed fault-tolerant gaits for quadruped robots have a drawback of having marginal stability margin, which may lead to tumbling. In the process of tumbling, the potential energy of the center of gravity goes through a maximum. The larger the difference between the potential energy of the center of gravity of the initial position and that of this maximum, the less the robot tumbles. Hence this difference of potential energy, dubbed as Energy Stability Margin (ESM), can be regarded as the stability margin. In this paper, a novel fault-tolerant gait is presented which gives positive ESM to a quadruped robot suffering from a locked joint failure. Positive ESM is obtained by adjusting foot positions between leg swing sequences. The advantage of the proposed fault-tolerant gait is demonstrated in a case study where a quadruped robot with a failed leg walks on a even slope.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers D
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• v.54 no.3
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• pp.131-140
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• 2005

Fault-tolerant gait generation of a hexapod robot with crab walking is proposed. The considered fault is a locked joint failure, which prevents a joint of a leg from moving and makes it locked in a known position. Due to the reduced workspace of a failed leg, fault-tolerant crab walking has a limitation in the range of heading direction. In this paper, an accessible range of the crab angle is derived for a given configuration of the failed leg and, based on the principles of fault-tolerant gait planning, periodic crab gaits are proposed in which a hexapod robot realizes crab walking after a locked joint failure, having a reasonable stride length and stability margin. The proposed crab walking is then applied to path planning on uneven terrain with positive obstacles. i.e., protruded obstacles which legged robots cannot cross over but have to take a roundabout route to avoid. The robot trajectory should be generated such that the crab angle does not exceed the restricted range caused by a locked joint failure.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers D
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• v.52 no.12
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• pp.689-695
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• 2003

Fault-tolerance is an important design criterion for robotic systems operating in hazardous or remote environments. This paper addresses the issue of tolerating a locked joint failure in gait planning for hexapod walking machines which have symmetric structures and legs in the form of an articulated arm with three revolute joints. A locked joint failure is one for which a joint cannot move and is locked in place. If a failed joint is locked, the workspace of the resulting leg is constrained, but hexapod walking machines have the ability to continue static walking. A strategy of fault-tolerant tripod gait is proposed and, as a specific form, a periodic tripod gait is presented in which hexapod walking machines have the maximum stride length after a locked failure. The adjustment procedure from a normal gait to the proposed fault-tolerant gait is shown to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed scheme.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.141-148
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• 2012

This paper proposes fault tolerant gaits of a quadruped robot with feet of flat shape. Fault tolerant gaits make it possible for a legged robot to continue static walking against a leg failure. In the previous researches, it was assumed that a legged robot had feet that have point contact with the surface. When the robot is endowed with feet having flat shape, fault tolerant gaits can show better performance compared with the former gaits, especially in terms of the stride length and gait stability. In this paper, fault tolerant gaits of a quadruped robot against a locked joint failure are addressed in straight-line motion and crab walking, respectively.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers D
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• v.53 no.8
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• pp.585-593
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• 2004

Fault-tolerant gait planning in legged locomotion is to design gaits with which legged robots can maintain static stability and motion continuity against a failure in a leg. For planning a robust and deadlock-free fault-tolerant gait, kinematic constraints caused by a failed leg should be closely examined with respect to remaining mobility of the leg. In this paper, based on the authors's previous results, deadlock avoidance scheme for fault-tolerant gait planning is proposed for a hexapod robot walking over even terrain. The considered fault is a locked joint failure, which prevents a joint of a leg from moving and makes it locked in a known position. It is shown that for guaranteeing the existence of the previously proposed fault-tolerant tripod gait of a hexapod robot, the configuration of the failed leg must be within a range of kinematic constraints. Then, for coping with failure situations where the existence condition is not satisfied, the previous fault-tolerant tripod gait is improved by including the adjustment of the foot trajectory. The foot trajectory adjustment procedure is analytically derived to show that it can help the fault-tolerant gait avoid deadlock resulting from the kinematic constraint and does not make any harmful effect on gait mobility. The post-failure walking problem of a hexapod robot with the normal tripod gait is addressed as a case study to show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.