Inclination detection and adaptive walking for low-cost six-legged walking robots using organic computing principles

Abstract For a legged robot that walks on rough terrain it is very important to avoid falling down while executing its mission. For this purpose, maintaining the six legged robot statically stable is considered an important issue and challenging task. This paper will shed light on the applied approach for detecting the direction of ground inclination, obstacle avoidance as well as the effect of amputation on statically stable up- and downhill walking based on evaluating the local current consumption and angular position of each leg’s joint. The body posture will be adjusted in relation to the direction of inclination. Our approach is based on an organic computing architecture and was tested on a low-cost version of the OSCAR robot.