Methods for Identifying Footfall Positions for a Legged Robot

We are designing a complete autonomous legged robot to perfom planetary exploration without human supervision. This robot must traverse unknown and geographically diverse areas in order a collect samples of materials. This paper describes how a geometric terrain representation from range imagery can be used to identify footfall positions. First, we present previous research aimed to determine footfall positions. Second, we describe several methods for determining the positions for which the shape of the terrain is nearest to the shape of the foot. Third, we evaluate and compare the efficiency of these methods as functions of some parameters such as particularities of the shape of the terrain. Fourth, we introduce other methods that use thermal imaging in order to differentiate materials