Abstract:
Dynamic legged locomotion entails navigating terrain at high speed. The impact shocks from rapid footfalls, pivotal for such mobility, introduce large impulses that saturate motion measurement. A biomimetic approach is presented in which visual information, in the form of optical flow, complements information from inertial sensors. The motion is then determined using a two-phase Hybrid Extended Kalman Filter. Experimentation in determining attitudes on a robotic leg platform shows a reduction in drift over inertial approaches and in delay over visual approaches. In tests with 6g impulses, pose was recovered within 5 deg rms with angular rate errors limited to 10 deglsec at frequencies up to 250 Hz.
