Abid Shahriar | Searcharxiv

arXiv2024

CHIGLU: A Modular Hardware for Stepper Motorized Quadruped Robot $\unicode{x2014}$ Design, Analysis, Fabrication, and Validation

Bio-engineered robots are under rapid development due to their maneuver ability through uneven surfaces. This advancement paves the way for experimenting with versatile electrical system developments with various motors. In this research paper, we present a design, fabrication and analysis of a versatile printed circuit board (PCB) as the main system that allows for the control of twelve stepper motors by stacking low-budget stepper motor controller and widely used micro-controller unit. The primary motivation behind the design is to offer a compact and efficient hardware solution for controlling multiple stepper motors of a quadruped robot while meeting the required power budget. The research focuses on the hardware's architecture, stackable design, power budget planning and a thorough analysis. Additionally, PDN (Power Distribution Network) analysis simulation is done to ensure that the voltage and current density are within the expected parameters. Also, the hardware design deep dives into design for manufacturability (DFM). The ability to stack the controllers on the development board provides insights into the board's components swapping feasibility. The findings from this research make a significant contribution to the advancement of stepper motor control systems of multi-axis applications for bio-inspired robot offering a convenient form factor and a reliable performance.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2024

A Balanced Positional Control Architecture for a 12-DoF Quadruped Robot through Simulation-validation and Hardware Testing

A multi-joint enabled robot requires extensive mathematical calculations to determine the end effector's position with respect to the other connective joints involved and their corresponding frames in a specific coordinate system. If a control architecture employs fewer positional constraints which cannot precisely determine the end effector's position in all quadrants of a 2D Cartesian plane then the robot is generally under-constrained, leading to challenges in accurate positioning to the end-effector across the entire plane. Consequently, only a subset of the end effector's degree of freedom (DoF) can be assigned for the robot's leg position for pose and trajectory estimation purposes. This paper introduces a novel approach and proposes an algorithm to consider a balanced control of the robot's leg position in a coordinate system so the robot's leg can be precisely determined and the DoF is not limited. Mathematical derivation of the joint angles is derived with forward and inverse kinematics, and Python-based simulation has been done to verify and simulate the robot's locomotion. Using Python-based code for serial communication with a micro-controller unit makes this approach more effective for demonstrating its application on a prototype leg its movement has been realized. The experimental prototype leg exhibits a commendable 78.9% accuracy with the simulated result, validating the robustness of our algorithm in practical scenarios. A comprehensive assessment of the control algorithm with random and continuous data point test has been conducted to ensure performance, so the algorithm can as well be deployed in a physical robot.

cs.RO↗