Control of Rotational Dynamics for Ground and Aerial Behavior

This paper proposes a physics-based framework to control rolling, flipping and other behaviors with significant rotational components. The proposed technique is a general approach for guiding coordinated action that can be layered over existing control architectures through the purposeful regulation of specific whole-body features. Namely, we apply control for rotation through the specification and execution of specific desired 'rotation indices' for whole-body orientation, angular velocity and angular momentum control and highlight the use of the angular excursion as a means for whole-body rotation control. We account for the stylistic components of behaviors through reference posture control. The novelty of the described work includes control over behaviors with considerable rotational components, both on the ground and in the air as well as a number of characteristics useful for general control, such as flight planning with inertia modeling, compliant posture tracking, and contact control planning.