Foot-terrain interaction mechanics for legged robots: Modeling and experimental validation

Contact mechanics plays an important role in the design, performance analysis, simulation, and control of legged robots. The Hunt-Crossley model and the Coulomb friction model are often used as black-box models with limited consideration of the properties of the terrain and the feet. This paper analyzes the foot-terrain interaction based on the knowledge of terramechanics and reveals the relationship between the parameters of the conventional models and the terramechanics models. The proposed models are derived in three categories: deformable foot on hard terrain, hard foot on deformable terrain, and deformable foot on deformable terrain. A novel model of tangential forces as the function of displacement is proposed on the basis of an in-depth understanding of the terrain properties. Methods for identifying the model parameters are also developed. Extensive foot-soil interaction experiments have been carried out, and the experimental results validate the high fidelity of the derived models.