Force Sensing to Control a Bio-Inspired Walking Robot

This paper presents the configuration for a bio-inspired walking robot to be used as a development experimental platform in order to validate control architectures. Basing on direct exploitation of the properties of a robot's mechanical structure, an approach for achieving force sensing is presented. During the robot's (electronic and mechanical) developmental phase, we were able to determinate knots with increases levels of tension and compression, in order to send signals to the strain gauges and to indirectly measure contact forces between the legs and the terrain. This study allowed us to theoretically allocate a group of strain gauges on the optimal positions in the mechanical structure so that they can accomplish the dynamic control of the robot.