HyQ, Hydraulic Quadruped Robot, Dynamic Legged Systems Lab, Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), Genova, Italy

HyQ is a new versatile quadruped robot with hydraulic+electric actuation developed at the Department of Advanced Robotics at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT). HyQ is fast, robust, actively compliant and ready for versatile locomotion. It weighs 70kg and is 1m long.

This video shows balancing and outdoor tests with HyQ at IIT. It shows walking over unperceived obstacles using active compliance and IMU for stabilization.

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The versatile quadruped robot HyQ demonstrates its motion skills that range from planned motion over uneven terrain to highly dynamic motions. Some of the highlights are: chimney climbing, lateral disturbances by 23kg boxing bag, planned motion over stepping stones and pallets, and a flying trot. All experiments are executed on the same machine. There are no physical springs in the legs or body of HyQ, all compliance results from active adjustment of stiffness and damping (by software). The high-performance joint torque control is a key element to achieve such a wide range of stable motions.

The following publications provide the details of the used controllers, planners, hardware, etc.

0:17 - 0:49
A. Winkler, I. Havoutis, S. Bazeille, J. Ortiz, M. Focchi, R. Dillmann, D. G. Caldwell, C. Semini, "Path Planning with Force-Based Foothold Adaptation and Virtual Model Control for Torque Controlled Quadruped Robots," IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2014.

0:50 - 1:32 and 1:47 - 1:54 and
V. Barasuol, J. Buchli, C. Semini, M. Frigerio, E. R. De Pieri, D. G. Caldwell, "A Reactive Controller Framework for Quadrupedal Locomotion on Challenging Terrain", IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2013.

1:33 - 1:46
C. Semini, V. Barasuol, T. Boaventura, M. Frigerio, J. Buchli, "Is Active Impedance the Key to a Breakthrough for Legged Robots?" International Symposium of Robotics Research (ISRR), 2013.

1:55 - 2:13
M. Focchi, V. Barasuol, I. Havoutis, J. Buchli, C. Semini, D. G. Caldwell, "Local Reflex Generation for Obstacle Negotiation in Quadrupedal Locomotion", Int. Conf. on Climbing and Walking Robots (CLAWAR), 2013.

2:13 - 2:17
C. Semini, H. Khan, M. Frigerio, T. Boaventura, M. Focchi, J. Buchli and D. G. Caldwell, "Design and Scaling of Versatile Quadruped Robots", Int. Conf. on Climbing and Walking Robots (CLAWAR), 2012.

2:18 - 2:46
T. Boaventura, C. Semini, J. Buchli, M. Frigerio, M. Focchi, D. G. Caldwell, "Dynamic Torque Control of a Hydraulic Quadruped Robot", IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2012.

2:47 - 2:58
T. Boaventura, G.A. Medrano-Cerda, C. Semini, J. Buchli, D. G. Caldwell, "Stability and Performance of the Compliance Controller of the Quadruped Robot HyQ," IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2013.

2:59 - 3:19
M. Focchi, et al. 2014 (under review)

Perception system:
S. Bazeille, et al. 2014 (under review)

Software: efficienct code generation for the simulation and real-time control of robots with arms and legs:
M. Frigerio, J. Buchli and D. G. Caldwell, "A Domain Specific Language for kinematic models and fast implementations of robot dynamics algorithms", 2nd International Workshop on Domain-Specific Languages and models for ROBotic systems (DSLRob'11), San Francisco, September 2011.

Hardware details:
C. Semini, "HyQ -- Design and Development of a Hydraulically Actuated Quadruped Robot," Dissertation, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia and University of Genoa, Italy, 2010.

and

C. Semini, N. G. Tsagarakis, E. Guglielmino, M. Focchi, F. Cannella, and D. G. Caldwell, "Design of HyQ - a hydraulically and electrically actuated quadruped robot," Journal of Systems and Control Engineering, vol. 225, no. 6, pp. 831--849, 2011.


Video editing by M. Focchi, A. Abrusci and C. Semini.

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This is the first glimpse of the latest robot to emerge from IIT's DLS lab. The development of HyQ2Max has been dedicated to maximising strength, robustness and versatility. This meant adding a far larger joint range than previously seen, a huge increase in the available torque in the joints and, at zero weight cost overall. In short, HyQ2Max is a monster... Stay tuned for new videos coming soon...

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This Paper is under review at the 18th International Conference on Climbing and Walking Robots (CLAWAR).

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Heterogeneous Sensor Fusion for Accurate State Estimation of Dynamic Legged Robots

Simona Nobili, Marco Camurri, Victor Barasuol, Michele Focchi, Darwin G. Caldwell, Claudio Semini, Maurice Fallon

Robotics: Science and Systems 2017

Abstract -- In this paper we present a system for the state estimation of a dynamically walking and trotting quadruped. The approach fuses four heterogeneous sensor sources (inertial, kinematic, stereo vision and LIDAR) to maintain an accurate and consistent estimate of the robot’s base link velocity and position in the presence of disturbances such as slips and missteps. We demonstrate the performance of our system, which is robust to changes in the structure and lighting of the environment, as well as the terrain over which the robot crosses. Our approach builds upon a modular inertial-driven Extended Kalman Filter which incorporates a rugged, probabilistic leg odometry component with additional inputs from stereo visual odometry and LIDAR registration. The simultaneous use of both stereo vision and LIDAR helps combat operational issues which occur in real applications. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first to discuss the complexity of consistent estimation of pose and velocity states, as well as the fusion of multiple exteroceptive signal sources at largely different frequencies and latencies, in a manner which is acceptable for a quadruped’s feedback controller. A substantial experimental evaluation demonstrates the robustness and accuracy of our system, achieving continuously accurate localization and drift per distance traveled below 1 cm/m.

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Viscosity-based Height Reflex for Workspace Augmentation for Quadrupedal Locomotion on Rough Terrain

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Video from 2016 showing self-righting capabilities of HyQ2Max

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Vision-based foothold adaptions for reactive and dynamic locomotion implemented on our quadruped robot HyQ.

For more information:
Octavio Villarreal, Victor Barasuol, Marco Camurri, Michele Focchi, Luca Franceschi, Massimiliano Pontil, Darwin G. Caldwell, Claudio Semini, "Fast and Continuous Foothold Adaptation for Dynamic Locomotion through Convolutional Neural Networks", arXiv, 2018.

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Experimental results using a passive whole-body control approach for quadruped robots that achieves dynamic locomotion while compliantly balancing the robot’s trunk.
We validate the capabilities of this controller under various terrain
conditions and gaits. The proposed approach is superior for
accurate execution of highly dynamic motions with respect to
the current state of the art.

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STANCE: Locomotion Adaptation over Soft Terrain
Shamel Fahmi, Michele Focchi, Andreea Radulescu, Geoff Fink, Victor Barasuol and Claudio Semini

This is the teaser video of our recent work on locomotion over soft terrain.

We present STANCE which stands for Soft Terrain Adaptation and Compliance Estimation. STANCE is an online soft terrain adaptation algorithm that can adapt online to any type of terrain compliance (stiff or soft). STANCE allows HyQ to adapt its locomotion strategy depending on the type of terrain. As a result, HyQ was able to traverse and transition between multiple terrains with different compliance without pre-tuning.

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IIT's new quadruped robot HyQReal is demonstrating its strength by pulling a small passenger airplane (Piaggio P180 Avanti), 3300kg weight, 14.4m long, with a wingspan of 14m.

video production: ILLUSION videoproduzioni
special thanks to Piaggio Aerospace and Aeroporto di Genova.
Funding: Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) and Moog Inc.
with additional funding from INAIL and ECHORD++.
thumbnail credit: V. Barasuol

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IIT's new HyQReal quadruped robot was released in May 2019. This highlight video shows previously unpublished footage of how we prepared the robot to pull a 3.3 ton airplane.

Additionally, it shows the robot walking over unstructured terrain and during public events in October 2019. Including a face-to-face with a dog.

Synopsis:
March 2019: First trot
April 2019: Standing up (onboard hydraulics)
April 2019: First pulling trials
April 2019: Pulling contest
May 2019: Pulling a 1.3 ton car (handbrake pulled)
May 2019: Pulling a 3.3 ton airplane at Genoa Airport
August 2019: INAIL project deliverables (4x)
October 2019: Maker Faire Roma
October 2019: INAIL workshop
December 2019: IIT- The future starts here
credits

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The development of balance controllers for legged robots with point feet remains a challenge when they have to traverse extremely constrained environments.

We present a balance controller that has the potential to achieve line walking for quadruped robots. Our initial experiments show the 90-kg robot HyQ balancing on two feet and recovering from external pushes, as well as some changes in posture achieved without losing balance.

This work has been accepted to be presented at the IROS 2020 conference. For more information, please see our preprint at: http://arxiv.org/abs/2007.01087.

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