AN ADAPTIVE GAIT FOR LEGGED WALKING MACHINES OVER ROUGH TERRAIN

An adaptive gait algorithm for multilegged walking machines over rough terrain has been developed. The heuristic and hierarchical approach for the three levels of 1) body motion adaptation, 2) leg sequence adaptation, and 3) leg position adaptation is effective, straightforward, and relatively independent of the number of legs. On rough terrains with depressions the algorithm behaves like a ''free gait''; on level ground terrain it behaves more like a periodic gait. ne effectiveness of the proposed gait over rough terrains with depressions is demonstrated with several computer simulations.