Biological Motivated Control Architecture and Mechatronics for a Human-Like Robot

In this paper the lower levels of a biological inspired control architecture for dynamically moving legged robots are presented. This architecture features a hierarchical distributed reflex based high level controller as well as the possibility to adjust the compliance of a stiff actuated joint. Furthermore the respective mechatronical setup for that approach is presented, that includes the actuation and energy storage in parallel springs. The approach is verified on a prototype leg mounted on a vertical slider, that is capable of performing a cyclic squat jump. The reflex based control concept is tested in a physics simulation environment. The experimental validation shows that no series elastic elements are required to receive comparable results with respect to the resulting motion. The low level stiffness controller is implemented on a DSP-board and tested using an experimental setup with two motors.