For small legged robots, ground contact interactions significantly affect the dynamics and locomotion performance. In this article, we designed thin, robust capacitive tactile sensors and applied them to the feet of a small hexapod with C-shaped rotating legs. The sensors measure contact forces as the robot traverses different types of terrain including hard surfaces with high or low friction, sand, and grass. Different gaits perform best on different types of terrain. Useful measured parameters include the magnitude and timing of the peak normal forces, in combination with the leg rotational velocity. The measured parameters were used in a support vector machine classifier to identify terrain types with 82.5% accuracy. Based on gait performance studies, we implemented a terrain-based gait control using real-time terrain classifications. A surface transitioning test shows 17.1% increase in body speed and 13.2% improvement in efficiency as the robot adjusts its gait.

中文翻译：

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小腿机器人的触觉感知和基于地形的步态控制

对于小腿机器人，地面接触相互作用显着影响动力学和运动性能。在本文中，我们设计了薄而坚固的电容式触觉传感器，并将它们应用到带有 C 形旋转腿的小型六足动物的脚上。当机器人穿越不同类型的地形（包括具有高或低摩擦力的硬表面、沙子和草地）时，传感器会测量接触力。不同的步态在不同类型的地形上表现最佳。有用的测量参数包括峰值法向力的大小和时间，以及腿部旋转速度。测量参数用于支持向量机分类器，以 82.5% 的准确率识别地形类型。基于步态性能研究，我们使用实时地形分类实现了基于地形的步态控制。