Design of a 13 degree-of-freedom biped robot with a CAN-based distributed digital control system

The design of a 13 degree-of-freedom autonomous biped robot, ABL-B1 is presented. Actuation is provided by brushed motors coupled with harmonic drive gear heads. A Control Area Network (CAN) provides a central bus for communication between all the actuators and sensors in the system. CAN-enabled microcontrollers allow for a distributed digital control loop architecture. The control hardware is coupled with a modular software architecture, running on an embedded PC, giving the ABL-B1 platform the ability to be reconfigured with different control strategies and to operate in a fully autonomous manner.