An efficient foot-force distribution algorithm for straight-line walking of quadruped robots with a failed leg

This paper addresses the foot force distribution problem for quadruped robots with a failed leg. The quadruped robot has fault-tolerant straight-line gaits with one leg in locked-joint failure, and has discontinuous motion with respect to the robot body. The proposed method is operated in two folds. When the robot body stands still, we use the feature that there are always three supporting legs, and by incorporating the theory of zero-interaction force, we calculate the foot forces analytically without resort to any optimization technique. When the robot body moves, the conventional pseudo-inverse algorithm is applied to obtain the foot forces for supporting legs. Simulation results show the validity of the proposed scheme.