A hierarchical approach to motion planning with applications to an underwater eel -like robot
Kenneth A. Mcisaac · Scholarly Commons (University of Pennsylvania) · 2001
This thesis presents a novel, hierarchical approach to motion planning for a class of dynamic, robotic, locomotion systems, specifically systems that involve some type of interaction with the environment and have dynamics that possess rotation and translational symmetries. We perform a dynamic analysis of the system to find a small set of periodic control inputs for momentum generation in desired directions. We then find a simplified, kinematic model which captures the fundamental nature of the locomotion system and use this abstract model for motion planning. This approach is inherently modular, since broad classes of locomotion systems can be described by the same kinematic approximation. In this thesis, our motion-planning algorithm is applied to the case of the swimming eel. The dynamics of the eel are analyzed in both a discrete (finite dimensional) and a continuous (infinite dimensional) setting, to yield control inputs for novel modes of locomotion in the plane, including turning, spinning and sideways locomotion. We then use these control inputs to develop a kinematic model of the eel, which we use in feedback control of our underwater, eel-like robot.