The Moco-Minitaur: A Low-Cost Direct-Drive Quadruped Robot for Dynamic Locomotion

In this paper we present the Moco-Minitaur robot, a small(sub-3.5kg) 8-Dof and low-cost (sub-4500 RMB) quadruped robot for dynamic locomotion. The robot can control vertical and horizontal force and the impedance at each foot. It can perform stable drop damping, standing and dynamically trotting using the virtual model control (VMC) and impedance control (IMP) algorithm. The proposed control system makes the robot perform such a wide range of ballistic locomotion behaviors and demonstrate foot force control during impact without other sensors. In addition, the hardware and CAD structure to replicate this robot is open-source, requires only hand tools for manufacturing and assembly.