A step in the right direction

Well, that would explain it…

The reason that the quadruped robot was doing the “funky chicken” instead of walking smoothly was mostly due to a major bug in the gait angle calculations. The angle of the leg is the sum of the “shoulder” and “knee” joint angles — but the angle commands to the knee servos weren’t taking the shoulder angles into account. This caused a really inefficient, jerking motion, rather than the relatively smooth gait that was intended.

Oops.

It’s fixed now (and has a new chassis and circuit board). The video shows it moving more-or-less in a straight line, but with a few modifications to the gait tables, it can turn, at least in shallow circles.

Next on the list:

• Rubber tips for the feet
• Improvements to the turning routines
• Turn-in-place functionality
• Reverse (basically, just run the gait tables in reverse order)
• Wireless control
• A second microcontroller to handle control and communications