Rule-based motion coordination for a hexapod walking machine

Abstract

This paper is concerned with rule-based coordination of motion for rough-terrain locomotion by a hexapod walking machine. The logic for generating leg commands is written in Prolog while the simulation of the terrain and of the vehicle kinematics, as well as low-level on-board computer functions, are written in extended Common Lisp. It is found that this approach results in code that is much easier to understand and modify than previous motion coordination programs written in Pascal. We believe that the motion coordination rule set included in this paper results in better adaptation of walking machine leg sequencing to terrain constraints than any previously published means.