Preliminary studies of a second generation brachiation robot controller

摘要

We report on our preliminary studies of a new controller for a two-link brachiating robot. Motivated by the pendulum-like motion of an ape\u27s brachiation, we encode this task as the output of a \u22target dynamical system\u22. Numerical simulations indicate that the resulting controller solves a number of brachiating problems that we term the \u22ladder\u22, \u22swing up\u22 and \u22rope\u22 problems. Preliminary analysis provides some explanation for this success. We discuss a number of formal questions whose answers will be required to gain a full understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of this approach.