Stair-climbing and energy consumption evaluation of a leg-tracked quadruped robot

This paper proposes an energy consumption criterion to realize the locomotion mode transition of hybrid ground robots, which particularly focuses on gait and energy analysis of a leg-tracked quadruped robot. The proposed criterion uses both the internal states of the robot and the external environmental information to determine the most energy efficient locomotion mode. The criterion is proposed based on the knowledge of the energy consumption of the studied robot to negotiate stairs of varying heights in the walking locomotion mode.