Adaptive control of walking robots based on virtual holonomic constraints: A simulative study

In this paper an adaptive scheme for the dynamic control of underactuated walking robots with impulse effects is proposed and illustrated for the case of a three-link robot with unknown torso mass. The proposed strategy is based on the virtual control technique, where fictitious control inputs and outputs are defined, which allow the design of a fully actuated-like control law; the reference signals for the virtual outputs are chosen as the solutions of a dynamic constraint, on which the fictitious controls are zero. The validity of the proposed method is motivated by Lyapunov arguments and tested by simulations. Copyright (C) 2019. The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.