Single leg walking with integrated perception, planning and control

Describes an integrated system capable of walking over rugged terrain using a single leg suspended below a carriage that rolls along rails. To walk, the system uses a laser scanner to find a foothold, positions the leg above the foothold, contacts the terrain with the foot, and applies force enough to advance the carriage along the rails. Walking both forward and backward, the system has traversed hundreds of meters of rugged terrain including obstacles too tall to step over, trenches too deep to step in, closely spaced rocks, and sand hills. The implemented system consists of a number of task-specific processes (two for planning, two for perception, one for real-time control) and a central control process that directs the flow of communication between processes. Implementing this integrated system is a significant step toward the goal of the CMU Planetary Rover project: to prototype a autonomous six-legged robot for planetary exploration