Sensor-based control of the reactive behaviors of walking machines

This paper addresses the problem of reactive behaviors of a fast walking robot moving in unknown and dynamic environments. This robot, named WAAL (walking autonomous artificial locust) has 6 active degrees of freedom controlled by two transputers. It interacts with its environment through a 3-sensor ultrasonic system and artificial whiskers. The authors have developed a hardware and software architecture in order to make this machine able to avoid collisions with the obstacles of its unstructured environment. The authors' approach of reactivity is based on the description of a virtual deformable risk zone surrounding the robot. The deformations of this zone, due to the intrusion of proximity informations, control the robot reactions.<
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