Evaluation of a locomotion algorithm for worm-like robots on FPGA-embedded processors

J. Gonzalez-Gomez, I. Gonzalez , F. Gomez-Arribas and E. Boemo

Computer Engineering School, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain
{Juan.Gonzalez, Ivan.Gonzalez, Francisco.Gomez, Eduardo.Boemo}@uam.es

Abstract:

In this paper, a locomotion algorithm designed for an eight modules worm-like robot has been successfully tested on three different FPGA-embedded processors: MicroBlaze, PowerPC and LEON2. The locomotion of worm-like robots, composed of a chain of equal linked modules, is achieved by means of wave propagation that traverse the body of the worm. The time the robot needs to generate a new motion wave, also known as the gait recalculation time, is the key to achieve an autonomous robot with real-time reactions. Algorithm execution time for four different architectures, as a function of the total number of articulations of the robot, are presented. The results show that a huge improvement of the gait recalculation time can be achieved by using a float point unit. The performance achieved using the LEON2 with FPU is 40 times better than LEON2 without FPU, using only 6% of additional resources.

• 1 Introduction

• 2 Locomotion algorithm for worm-like robots

• 3 Implementation on embedded FPGA processors

  • 1 Algorithm operation analysis

• 2 Target architectures

• 4 Results

  • 1 Synthesis results

• 2 Algorithm execution time

• 5 Conclusion and further work

• Bibliography

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