Minimum-fuel path planning of a 5-link biped robot

A set of minimum energy trajectories of a five-link biped robot is obtained by nonlinear programming. Specifically, both state and control variables are approximated by the B-spline function. A set of dynamic equations are derived through collocation. These approximations are further used to reduce the performance index containing function of both the state and control to a scalar function of B-spline coefficients. Thus, a dynamic optimization problem is thereby reduced to a simple, static optimization problem. Using a gradient-based algorithm, a set of minimum-fuel trajectories is obtained. Simulation results are included to demonstrate the applicability of the algorithm.<>