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Foundations of Robotics Seminar, March 16, 2010
Time
and Place | Seminar Abstract
Geometric Mechanics of Locomotion: Optimizing Coordinate Choice
Ross Hatton
Robotics Institute
CMU
NSH 1507
Talk 1:30 pm
Animals often use gaits -- cyclic changes in shape producing a net
displacement -- to move through their environments. In robotics, we are
interested in planning motions for artificial systems that can match or
exceed the locomotive capabilities of animals. A fundamental question of
locomotion is 'What are the characteristics of a useful gait?' The
geometric mechanics community has made significant progress in answering
this question, identifying functions of the system shape that capture the
net displacements induced by broad classes of gaits without having to
individually test each possible motion. In this talk, we first introduce
these results with the aim of separating them from the specialized
language of differential geometry and making them accessible to a broader
audience. Following this introduction, we then examine how the choice of
generalized coordinates affects the quality of the locomotion functions, a
question that has not previously been addressed.
The Robotics Institute is part of the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University.