Title: Software evolution of a hexapod robot walking gait

Authors: Jonathan Currie, Mark Beckerleg, John Collins

Addresses: Engineering Research Institute, AUT University, 34 St Paul Street, Auckland 1001, New Zealand. ' Engineering Research Institute, AUT University, 34 St Paul Street, Auckland 1001, New Zealand. ' Engineering Research Institute, AUT University, 34 St Paul Street, Auckland 1001, New Zealand

Abstract: This paper describes the process of evolving a hexapod robot walking gait within a simulated software environment. Initially, a 3D mathematical model of the robot was created using MATLAB, simulating full motion of each robot|s six legs. Each leg has three degrees of freedom (DOF), allowing the robot to move in both lateral and rotational directions. The simulation allows the robot|s movements to be estimated, and was used with a genetic algorithm (GA) to evolve walking gaits for the robot. The walking gait is described by a chromosome which is an 18 &multi; 9 look up table (LUT) that lists the angular position of all 18 servo motors over a sequence of 9 discrete static positions. Each position in the LUT has 20 discrete states, allowing a flexible range of achievable motions, while maintaining sensible evaluation limits. Successful evolution of these gaits was performed within 700 generations.

Keywords: hexapod robots; walking gait; genetic algorithms; evolution; robot walking; simulation; mathematical modelling; robot motion; robot control.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISTA.2010.030218

International Journal of Intelligent Systems Technologies and Applications, 2010 Vol.8 No.1/2/3/4, pp.382 - 394

Published online: 11 Dec 2009 *

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