In this thesis, we will explore the minimum energy and time-
optimal trajectory planning in periodic gaits of the quadrupedal
walking machine. In general, the legged walking machines are
more suitable than wheeled or tracked vehiclesto walk on a
rough/soft terrain, and the energy efficiency and the speed are
crucial issues for the researches of walking machines.
Therefore, researches inthese areas would be significant and
important. Firstly, we will present an efficient algorithm, the
Compact QP method, to solve a constrained quadratic-optimization
problem in order to make thiswalking machine walk with minimum
energy consumption in real time. Then, a comparison of the
proposed method with the traditional pseudo-inverse methodwill
be given to show the superiority.Moreover, a minimum time
algorithm will also be proposed and improved to implement the
time-optimal path planning of the leg in the transfer phase.
Furthermore, the derived results can be employedto the time-
optimal trajectory planning of the whole quadrupedal walking
machinein different periodic gaits. Simulation results show
that the proposed methods are valid and efficient forthis
walking machine.