Gait Planning for Spot Micro AI Robot

In this project, I worked with a team of peers to create and implement a smooth change of gait for a SpotMicroAI robot in simulation using strategies from research literature.

My work focused on gait planning and interpolation between a walking and trotting gait, which are pictured here. The walking gait is a forward, symmetric wave gait, which transitions into the trotting, dynamically balanced gait. My teammates focused on inverse kinematics for the legs and the ROS structure of commanding the simulation.

We were successful in implementing the gait on a ROS simulation in RViz for a SpotMicroAI robot; in testing the gait in the physics simulator Gazebo, we found that the robot's preprogrammed angle and velocity limits provided difficulties for planned trajectories, and caused it to bounce around. Problems with robot limits and related constants set in its URDF prevented us from successfully testing the robot in the Gazebo simulator; however, the robot can be seen to successfully transition between gaits in the video from RViz .