07/16/2024
By Stephen Misenti

The Francis College of Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering, invites you to attend a Master’s thesis defense by Stephen Misenti on the “Evaluation of Commercial Quadrupedal Robot Hardware and Controllers for Locomotion and Stable Manipulation on Dynamic Rigid Surfaces."

Candidate Name: Stephen Misenti
Degree: Master’s
Defense Date: July 29, 2024
Time: 3 to 4 p.m.
Location: DAN 309 and via Zoom
Thesis Title: Evaluation of Commercial Quadrupedal Robot Hardware and Controllers for Locomotion and Stable Manipulation on Dynamic Rigid Surfaces.

Committee

  • Advisor: Reza Azadeh, Ph.D., Miner School of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Massachusetts Lowell
  • Co-Advisor: Yan Gu, Ph.D., School of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University
  • Member: Kshitij Jerath, Ph.D., Francis College of Engineering, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Abstract:
Creating legged robots has been a focus of research since the 1960s. There have been many designs for hardware and controllers over the years, but a particular challenge researchers face today is designing a controller for stable robotic locomotion on dynamic rigid surfaces which can be found on naval vessels, offshore platforms, trains, and aircraft. This research focuses on evaluating existing controllers found on commercial products, such as Ghost Robotics Vision 60 and Boston Dynamics Spot, to determine potential loco-manipulation effectiveness and evaluating system stability.

In our experiments, the Vision 60 robot was coupled with the Kinova Gen2 manipulator and Spot uses the Spot Arm to facilitate loco-manipulation. These robot systems were tested in a controlled environment against the swaying and rocking motion of a rigid platform with a fiducial for their end-effector to track. We performed these tests with varying motions on the dynamic platform, including motions derived from IMU data collected from field experiments, and compared the collected data between the robot systems as well as field data collected aboard a naval vessel.

Experimentation and results show that Vision 60 and Spot are capable of staying upright on dynamic rigid surfaces, but need improvement. In field experiments, Spot was able to successfully move about the testing area during most experiments, but had difficulty during wave swells in rougher sea states. During controlled experiments, Vision 60 and Spot experienced significant disturbances, but were able to stay on the testing platform in most experiments. However, heavier motions worsened results. In some trials, Spot failed to stay safely upright. Overall, Vision 60 showed better results than Spot.

This thesis contributes metrics of evaluation for quadruped robots within non-inertial environments. Safety procedures were created and robot safety harnesses and experiment apparatus were designed for each experiment and can be used for future experiments. Shipboard IMU data was extracted during live experiments and filtered to produce motion equations useful for testing in simulated environments and were used for my controlled experiments. Commercial quadruped products were tested within non-inertial environments to identify their capabilities and limitations and their recorded data was analyzed to identify performance gaps.