Proceedings of the 1999 IEEYASME

International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics

September 19-23, 1999 Atlanta, USA

A Friction Constraint Method for the Force

Distribution of Quadruped Robots
Debao Zhou and K. H. Low
School of Mechanical and Production Engineering
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639798
the Friction Constraint Method (FriCoM), for the control of
quadruped walking robot is introduced. Further discussion
on the method can be found in reference 3.

Abstract--One of the important issues of walking machine

active force control is a successful distribution of the body
force to the feet to prevent leg slippage. In this article, a new
force distribution method, the Friction Constraint Method
(FriCoM), is introduced. The force distribution during the
walking of a typical quadruped crawl gait is analyzed by using
the FriCoM. Computation results show that the distributed
forces of the feet are continuous during the walking. This
reflects the change of the force distribution during actual
conditions. The comparison with a pseudo-inverse method
shows that the FriCoM is more practical. The FriCoM also
requires less computation time than that by an incremental
optimization method. Some problems, such as the singularity,
in the application of the FriCoM are discussed. The FriCoM
will be used in the active force control of a quadruped robot
that is taken as the platform for the research on the study of
terrain adaptation.

This paper is organized as follows: Section I1 provides the

problem statement and reviews of the previous force
distribution optimization methods for walking machines.
The proposed method (FriCoM) is introduced in Section
111. Section IV presents the force distribution results
obtained by the FriCoM during one walking period of a
quadruped crawl gait whose parameters are similar to that
given by Liu and Wen [4].The results given by the FriCoM
are similar to those given in reference 4. By using the
physical parameters of the proposed quadruped robot,
results of the FriCoM are compared with those obtained
from the pseudo-inverse method [2, 5, 6, 71 and an
incremental method [8]. The effectiveness and efficiency of
the proposed approach are also demonstrated. Certain
problems with the FriCoM are discussed in Section V.
Some concluding remarks are given in Section VI.

Index terms-- quadruped walking robots, dynamic equations,

force distribution, friction constraints

I. INTRODUCTION
11. PROBLEM
CONSIDERED
ANDPREVIOUS
WORKS

An important problem for a walking machine with active

force control is how to successfully distribute the body
force to the feet. These forces are usually indeterminate
during the walking motion because of the closed-chain
system [ 11. The optimization of the leg-end force values is
to select a solution of a reference force for the active force
control to prevent foot slippage and to support the body. It
is also defined as the leg force distribution problem [2].
The active force control of a walking machine requires an
efficient approach to optimize the foot force distribution in
real time. In the control system of the walking machine,
much time is required for the motion planning, the
computation of the inverse kinematics of the legs, the
processing signal coming from sensors, and the motion
control of the body and legs, etc. All these works must be
done on-line, so it is necessary for the control system to
quickly obtain a suitable force distribution and the force
setpoint in the active force control of legs.

There are two assumptions for the force distribution: (1) the
foot contacts with the ground by a point or a small area,
and (2) the walking machine walks in a statically stable
way. Based on these assumptions, the equilibrium
equations can be expressed in terms of the coordinate
system ( o b & Y b z b ) (see Fig. 1): .

2f, +Fx = 0 ,
,=I

i=l

,=I

The objective of this work is to develop an effective

method to obtain quickly a suitable force distribution. To
achieve such an objective, a new force distribution method,
0-7803-5038-3/99/$10.000 1999 IEEE

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where n is the total number of the supporting legs; f k J , and

the forcelmoment equilibrium equations with some optimal

relations and obtained a set of linear equations. To solve the
discontinuity problem of optimal solution, they used the
principle of the convex combination [4].

fl, are the forces acting at the i-th foot along x, y, and z axis
of the body-fixed frame (0,xb Yb Zb), respectively; F,, F,,
F,, T,, T,, are the forces and torques acting at the frame
(obXb Yb Z b ) ; Mg iS the weight Of the body; Xi, y;, Z; are the
coordinates of i-th leg-end in the body-fixed frame; x,, yc,
and z, are the coordinates of the center of the gravity of the
walking machine in the frame (obXb Yb Zb). For simplicity,
the frame (obxb Yb zb) will always keep its orientation the
same as that of the terrain-fixed frame (0,X,Y,Z,) in the
following discussion.

A new force distribution for the motion of the leg-ends of a

quadruped-walking machine is proposed and introduced
here. The aim of this method is to find a force distribution
that is quickly satisfied by the friction constraints.
111. FRICTION
CONSTRAINT
METHOD
(FRICOM)

For the statically stable walk of a quadruped robot, there

are two kinds of supporting phases: 3-leg supporting phase
and 4-leg supporting phase [16]. A method is proposed for
the force distribution problem in these two phases by using
the friction constraints. The method is called the Friction
Constraint Method, shortly the FriCoM.
A. Force Distributionfor a 3-leg Supporting Phase
For the force distribution during a 3-leg supporting phase,
both the vertical (zb direction) and horizontal (& or Yb
direction) forces are considered together with the friction
constraints.

Fig. 1. Frame systems and parameter definitionof a 4-legged robot.

In case of three supporting legs (n = 3), the forces on these

feet are indeterminate because there are 9 unknown forces
but only six equations. In order to determine the reference
force in an active force control, the solution of the force
values must be optimized. Many methods had been applied
to solve this problem. To control the 6-legged robot,
AMBLER, Nagy et al. [9] used a method which was
combined with the Hookes law for the compliant contact of
the feetlground. They did not, however, consider any
horizontal force component. The pseudo-inverse method
[7] is one of the most common-used methods. Lehtinen [2]
and Alexandre [6] use this method to obtain the force
distribution for 6-legged walking robots. Klein and Chung
[5] also proposed this method, but the lateral forces were
not considered. A stiffness matrix method was developed
by Gao et a1 [ 10, 1I]. In this method, the force distribution
is obtained by modeling the stiffness in the legs and their
effects on the leg-foot contacts. However the stiffness of
the whole body is much more difficult to determine because
of the complex structure of the legs, body and actuators.
The incremental methods include the compact-dual LP
method by Cheng and Orin [12], a method by Klein and
Kittivatcharapong [13] and a method by Gardner [14].
Some optimization methods such as Simplex [I21 are used
to obtain an optimal force distribution solution. A
hypothesis of a zero interaction force field was introduced
by Waldron [15]. The components of each pair of contact
forces projected on the joining line of their corresponding
contact points are equal. The structure of this force field
(equilibrating force field) is analogous to a helicoidal
vector field and is the planar components of the contact
forces. This assumption provides additional equations
desired for a complete solution. Liu and Wen [4] combined

Step I: Verticalforces without considering the horizontal

forces
By assuming that all the horizontal forces are zero, the
vertical forces acting at the three leg-ends satisfy the
following equations:
s,+Az+ f m - Mg = 0,
(24
(2b)
Lap+&aq+f d r = M a c - T,,
(2c)
&,lc,+hi.,-k f d r = Mgxc + T.,
where p , q, r are the numbers of the three supporting legs
(p, q, r = 1, 2, 3 or 4, and p f q f r). Equations (2) can be
used to solve for the three vertical forces acting at the legends.
Step 2: Forces acting at onefoot
The vertical forces obtained from Equations (2) are only
approximate values and the horizontal forces must satisfy
the friction constraints in order to keep a statically stable
walk. According to the slippage constraints, the horizontal
forces acting at one leg-end can be estimated by f k = pKJk
and A, = pKiJz ( i = p , q or r), where p is the friction
coefficient. The parameters Kk?Kiy (1 2 IKkl 2 0 and 1 L
I&,[ 1 0) are used to estimate the horizontal forces. The
forces acting at the i-th leg-end, f k , A, and Az, can then be
obtained. The i-th foot here is defined as the referencefoot.
Step 3: Forces acting at otherfeet
The forces acting at the reference foot can be estimated
during the second step of the force distribution method.
These force values will then be used to compute the forces
acting at the other two feet.

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following parameters will affect the results: (a) Friction

factors between the leg-end and ground, p, K, and Kfy;(b)
Magnitude of external generalized forces Fx, Fy, Fz, I;, Ty
and Tz;(c) Direction of the horizontal force f n and J,,.
Furthermore, the following steps are specified in the
searching algorithm: (a) Increasing K, from 0 to 1; (b)
Increasing K, from 0 to 1; (c) Changing the direction off,;
(d) Changing the direction ofJy. WhenJz > 0, If,l I dzand
I dZ,
a suitable result which is satisfied by the friction
constraints is obtained. The main steps of the force
distribution method are illustrated in Fig. 2.

Assuming that the p-th leg-end is the reference foot, we can

rewrite Equations (1) as:
BF=Q,
(34
in which

Q = bqXf , f q y f ,
. F = { - 4 - L z -Fy-Ly

fn)T

fqz

(3b)

Mg-t-&

xyl

M a c- T - f , Y p + f p y z p

- Mg4 - T, + f P P P- f P J P
1
0

1
0

0
1

0
1

T + f,Y,

0
0

- f,.,

k3C)

B. Force Distribution for a 4-leg Supporting Phase

For the statically stable walking of a quadruped machine,
there is one 4-leg supporting phase between two 3-leg
supporting phases. As shown in Fig. 3, from time t , to t,,
there is a 3-leg supporting phase and the supporting legs are
1, 2 and 3. From time t2 to t,, there is a 4-leg supporting
phase with the first leg being lifted and the fourth leg being
lowered. From time t, to t4, there is another 3-leg supporting
phase and the supporting legs are 2, 3 and 4. In a 4-leg
supporting phase, the forces at each foot should be
smoothly changed from the end of the previous 3-leg
supporting phase to the beginning of the next 3-leg
supporting phase. Therefore in a 4-leg supporting phase,
the distribution of the forces can be any desired continuous
scalar function varying during the supporting-leg changing
phase [4, 171. For simplicity, it is assumed that the forces at
each leg-end will change linearly with time during one 4leg supporting phase, which can be seen in Fig. 3.

-Y, -Y,
x,
xr
0
0
The forces acting at other two leg-ends can then be
obtained by using Equations (3).

Step 4: Searching for the suitable,result which is satisfied

by thefriction constraints
From the pervious three steps, the forces acting at the three
leg-ends are obtained. It is still unknown whether the forces
satisfy the friction constraints:
Sp, V;,l/Jb S p and fu>O.
If the friction constraints are not satisfied, the first three
steps must be re-computed by changing some parameters
until the friction constraints are satisfied. Note that the

rJ&

3-leg
i
4-leg
i
3-leg
\supporting p h a s e . supporting p h a s e ; supporting phase

Leg 1

horizontal forces equal to zero

t2

-_-_lifting leg

t4

Time (s)
supporting leg

Fig. 3. Foot force distribution for a support-leg-changing phase.

IV. SIMULATION OF FORCEDISTRIBUTION
USING A
QUADRUPED
CRAWL
GAIT
A periodic

nonsingular forwardhackward quadruped

creeping gait is used for the simulation. The gait
parameters, including the duty factor A, leg motion phase
p,and the initial support position (xi, yi, z f ) ,determine the
statically stable margin of the gait. They should be chosen
correctly, so that the gait is statically stable. Different
values of the parameters of a statically stable gait were
assumed in different sets of simulations. One simulation
result is shown here to compare with the results given by

Change the magnitude o

Fig. 2 . Evaluation procedures of the FriCoM.

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According to the leg-end trajectory shown in Fig. 5 and the

external generalized forces, by using the computation and
control procedure shown in Fig. 6 , the force distributed to
the feet by the FriCoM is given in Fig. 7. Using the body
parameters given by Liu and Wen: the body length L, = 1.9
m, the body width L, = 1 m and the thigh I, = 0.4 m, the
shank link 1, = 0.4 m (see Fig. l),the torques acting at the
three joints can be evaluated by the Jacobian matrix [ 181 as:

Liu and Wen [4]. The gait diagram is shown in Fig 4.

The data used in the simulation are as follows:
1. Foot initial positions: x,=x2=25/24 m, x,=x4=-23/24 m;
y1=y,=0.5m,y2=y4=-0.5m;zl=-0.6m,z,=-0.7
m, z, = -0.5 m, z4 = -0.6 m;
2. Duty factors: A = 11/12 (i = 1,2,3,4);
3. Leg motion phase: p4= 4/12, = 6/12, fi = 10/12, p,
=

12/12;

- lS6PciS + 1 2 S ~ P S ( t S + , k )

The x-y plane of the body-fixed frame is parallel to the

horizontal ground;
5. The support surfaces are parallel to each other;
6. The total body forces are F, = -50 N, F, = -25 N, F, = 0
N, Mg = 1000 N and moments are all zero. The
acceleration forces of the legs are ignored;
7. The locomotion cycle time is T = 10 s; the stride length
of the gait is A = 1 m; and the velocity of the vehicle is
constant.

4.

lC,PctS

[g=[

+ 12C#PS(6+,k)

z]

- kC8PsS - 1 2 c , P c ( , S + t k ) - IsnPs#S - 2,Pc(,S+2k)

- 12C,PC(,S+#k)
- 1P,PC(,S+,k)
0
-lC(&+8k)

+2s(6+k)][

12S(,S+,k)

eP;

(4)

ek;

in which, s = sin; c = cos; Ip =

Is = &; Ik E
(,s+lk) =
($+
The subscripts S,P and k represent the parameters
on the Joint-S, the Joint-P and the knee joint, respectively
(Fig. 10). Results of the torques are shown in Fig. 8. The
results obtained from the FriCoM are continuous. Note that
the computation time for one position is less than 0.01 s in
a Pentium 200MHz computer.

ek).

Leg 1
Leg 2

Leg 3
Leg 4

Leg is in supportingphases

In addition, we compared the FriCoM with the pseudoinverse method [7] and an incremental method [8]. It was
found that the FriCoM gave a better result than that
obtained from the pseudo-inverse method if a supporting
leg is near to the center of gravity. By employing the
Matlab software, the force distribution according to the
incremental method takes 2 s to 12 s depending on the
initial values, while the FriCoM takes less than 0.01s.
Because of the shorter computation time, the FriCoM will
be more efficient and suitable in the real-time control of
walking machines.

Leg is in swing phases

Fig. 4. Gait diagram of a quadruped crawl gait (p= 11/12)

3-

1---

V. DISCUSSION
A. Variation of the Force Distribution during CG Shift

-1

10

It can be seen from Figs. 7 and 8 that the variation of the

distributed forces is continuous during the continuous
motion (Fig. 5 ) of the walking machine. It reflects the
change of the force distribution in practical conditions.

Time(s)
Fig. 5. Trajectory of the 1 leg end.

Leg-end trajectory
is changed to hipfixed frame

--*

Inverse kinematics
(Incorporate the

trajectory into each

joint angle)

Motors

each joint

Motion controller,
such as PID
controller

Encoders

Fig. 6. Signal flow chart of the computation of the force distributionand torques for a quadruped robot.

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However, there are six unknowns in the following

equations,
f p x + f, + f, + F, = 0
(6a)
3

f, + f , +f, +Fy = o ,
f p y x p+fqyxq - f p x Y p - s , Y , - L Y ,

-100

(6c)
so it is still an undetermined system. The pseudo-inverse
method [7] is then used to solve Equations (6).

J
2

(6b)

+T = 09

10

C. Singularity

Time[@

(a)

During the solving procedures specified in Equations (3),

singularity would exist. In the following, the methods to
avoid different cases of singularity are described. Again, p ,
q and r denote the supporting leg number,

When zp = zq, the Jh leg-end cannot be selected as the

reference foot in order to avoid singularity. Similarly, when
xp = xq or yp = yq, the Jh leg-end cannot be selected as the
reference foot. Under the second condition, after the
computation of the plh leg-end and qfh leg-end forces, if
suitable result is still not available, the body frame can be
rotated an angle of y (e.g. y= 45") along z b axis, then

10

Time(@

(b)
'

.......... .........

.................i..

-54
0

By varying the angle of 3: the x and y coordinates of each

leg-end in the rotating kame ( o b &' yb' Z,? will be
different to the previous coordinates in frame (ohxbYbzh).
The singularity can be eliminated and the force components
of fh',f,&'
and fk' can then be obtained. For the forces in
frame ( o b & Y b z b ) , the transformation can be written as:

I
2

.6

10
Time($

(c)
Fig. 7. Force distribution in a locomotion cycle:
(a) Forces in Z, direction;
(b) Forces in Xb direction; ( c ) Forces in Yb direction.
.................. ................... .................. ................... ..................

When zp = z, and ((x, = xq and yq = y,) or (xq = x, and yp =

y J ) , none of the feet can be selected as the reference foot.
But this is a special case in which the CG is on the edge of
the supporting polygon (at the middle point of the line
through the pth leg-end and the Jh leg-end). The force
distribution in this case can be obtained directly.

.............

?------.
a

10

Time(s)

By selecting any of the three feet as the reference foot, the

case of xp = xq = x, or yp = yq = y r will cause singularities in
the solving of Equations (3). This is, in fact, an impossible
case as the three legs stand along the same line.

Fig. 8:Joint torques of the 1" leg end in a locomotion cycle.

B. A Special Case: Flat Terrain

Assuming that the leg-end positions of three supporting
legs are (xp, yp, zp),(x9, y9, z9), and (x,., yn z,), respectively.
When zp = z9 = z,, the robot walks on flat terrain. Under this
circumstance, according to Equations (3), the following
three equations can be solved forJ;Z (i =p , q or r):
f,. +f, +f, =Mg7
(54

f p z Y p+ f q z Y ,+ f,Y, = M a , - FYZl - T,
f p x p + f& + f , x , = Ty - F A + w v c .
9

VI. CONCLUDING
REMARKS

Force control is one of the ways to improve the terrain

adaptation of walking machine. The method of the force
distribution is to provide a reference force for the active
force control. Based on the equilibrium equations of a
quadruped-walking machine, a new efficient force
distribution method (FriCoM) is introduced. This method is
used to evaluate the force distribution by considering the

t 5b)
(5c)

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friction constraints during the walking of a quadruped

machine. The following conclusions can be obtained:

VII. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank Dr. Teresa Zielinska for
her various discussions and suggestions on the project.
Thanks are also due to the reviewers for their constructive
comments. The work is under the support of the Robotics
Research Center, NTU.

1. The forces distributed to the feet by the FriCoM are

continuous when the center of the gravity of the
walking machine shifts continuously. This enables a
smooth change of the force distribution in practical
conditions.
2. In some conditions, the FriCoM yields a result that
satisfies the friction constraints, whereas such a result
cannot be achieved by the pseudo-inverse method. The
FriCoM takes less computation time than that of an
incremental optimization method. The results obtained
from the FriCoM are quite similar to the results given
by Liu and Wen [4].
3. The computation time in one posture using the
software Matlab by a Pentium 200MHz computer is
less than 0.01s. The force distribution algorithm is
more suitable in the real-time control of quadruped
walking machines.

VIII. REFERENCES
[ l ] V. R. Kumar and K. J. Waldron, Force Distribution in Closed
Kinematic Chains, IEEE Journal of Robotics and Automation, vol. 4,
no. 6, pp. 657-664, 1988.
[2] H. Lehtinen, Force Rased Motion Control of a Walking Machine,
Ph.D. Thesis, Technical research Center of Finland, VTT Publications
179, Finland, 1994.
[3] Debao Zhou, K. H. Low and Teresa Zielinska, An Efficient Force
Distribution Algorithm for the Legs of Quadruped Walking Machines
with Friction Constraints, Accepted for presentation at the Tenth
World Congress on the Theory of Machines and Mechanisms
(IFToMM), Oulu, Finland, June 1999.
[4] H. Y. Liu and B. C. Wen, Force Distribution for the Legs of a
Quadruped Walking Vehicle, Journal of Robotic Systems, vol 14, no.
1, pp. 1-8, 1997.
[SI C. A. Klein and T . 4 . Chung Force Interaction and Allocation for the
Legs of a Walking Vehicle, IEEE Journal of Robotics and
Automation, vol. RA-3, no. 6, pp. 546-555, 1987.
[6] P. Alexandre, An Autonomous Micro Walking Machine with
Rollover Recovery Capability, Workshop II: New Approaches on
Dynamic Walking and Climbing Machines of the Bth International
Conference on Advanced Robotics, Monterey, CA, USA, pp. 48-55,
1997.
[7] Y. Nakamura, Advanced Robotics: Redundancy and Optimization,
Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts, USA, 1991.
[SI The Mathworks Inc., Users Guide for Optimization Toolbox of
Matlab 5.0, the Mathworks, Inc., Natick, MA, USA, 1996.
[9] P. V. Nagy, W. L. Whittaker and S. Desa, A Walking Prescription for
Statically-Stable Walkers Based on Walkermerrain Interaction,
Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and
Aufomation, Nice, France, pp. 149-156, 1991.
[lo] X. C. Gao and S. M. Song, Stiffness Matrix Method for Foot Force
Distribution of Walking Vehicles, Proceedings of the International
Conference on Robotics and Automation, Los Alamitos, CA, USA, pp.
1470-1475, 1990.
[ I l l X. C. Ciao, S. M. Song and C. Q. Zheng, A Generalized Stiffness
Matrix Method for Force Distribution of Robotic Systems with
Indeterminacy, Journal of Mechanical Design, vol. 115, no. 3, pp.
585-591, 1993.
[!2] F. T. Cheng and D. E. Orin, Efficient Algorithm for Optimal Force
Distribution - The Compact-Dual LP Method, IEEE Transactions on
Robotics andAutomation, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 178-187, 1990.
[I31 C. A. Klein and S. Kittivatcharapong, Optimal Force Distribution for
the Legs of a Walking Machine with Friction Cone Constraints, IEEE
Transactions on Robotics and Automation, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 73-85
1990.
141 J. F. Gardner, Efficient Computation of Force Distributions for
Walking Machines on Rough Terrain, Robotica, vol. 10, pp. 427-433,
1992.
151 K. J. Waldron, Force and Motion Management in Legged
Locomotion IEEE Journal of Robotics and Automation, vol. 2, no. 4,
pp. 102-109, 1986.
161 M. Kaneko, K. Tanie and M. N. M. Than, A Control Algorithm for
Hexapod Walking Machine over Soft Ground, IEEE Journal of
Robotics and Automation, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 194-202, 1988.
[17] K. Yoneda, H. Iiyama and S. Hirose, Sky-hook Suspension Control
of a Quadruped Walking Vehicle, Proceedings of the IEEE
International Conference on Robotics and Aufomation, Piscataway,
NJ, USA, vol. 2, pp. 999-1004, 1994.
[ 181 P. J. McKerrow, Introduction fo Robotics, Addison-Wesley, Reading,
Massachusetts, USA, 1991.

A quadruped robot shown in Fig. 9 is being built for future

implementation. A 2-bar mechanism is selected as the leg
structure. There are 3 degrees of freedom in one leg. The
leg mechanism is shown in Fig. 10. This quadrupedwalking machine is proposed to walking in various kinds of
terrain including hard-concave terrain, hard-convex terrain
and soft terrain. The FriCoM will be applied to the force
control of the proposed walking robot to improve the
terrain adaptation of the robot.

Fig. 9. The proposed walking machine.

gears
Fig. 10. Mechanical structure of one leg

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