Bio-inspired control strategy study for the quadruped robot with a segmented spine

Purpose This study aims to establish a bio-inspired controller for realizing the bounding gait of a quadruped robot system presented in this paper. Design/methodology/approach The bio-inspired controller is divided into three levels to mimic the biological patterns of animals. First, the high-level sub-controller is equivalent to the cerebellum, which could plan and control the motion of animals. Second, the effect of the middle-level sub-controller corresponds to the central nervous system. The central pattern generators in the spine generate the stable and cyclic signals as the fundamental rhythm for periodic motion of the leg and spine joints. Third, the low-level sub-controller is equal to the end effector, which adopts the simple proportional-derivative (PD) control to realize the specific motion trajectory of the legs and spine. Findings Combined with the stability criterion presented previously and the delayed feedback control method, the bounding gait of the cheetah virtual prototype could be actuated and stabilized by the bio-inspired controller. Moreover, the bio-inspired controller is applied to realize the bounding gait of an SQBot, which is a quadruped robot with a spine joint. Meanwhile, the validity and practicability of the bio-inspired controller for the control of quadruped robot have been verified against different forward velocities. Originality/value The bio-inspired controller and bionic quadruped robot system are instructive for the designing and actuating of the real quadruped robot.