A Layered Control Perspective on Legged Locomotion: Embedding Reduced Order Models via Hybrid Zero Dynamics
Abstract
Reduced-order models (ROMs) provide a powerful means of synthesizing dynamic walking gaits on legged robots. Yet this approach lacks the formal guarantees enjoyed by methods that utilize the full-order model (FOM) for gait synthesis, e.g., hybrid zero dynamics. This paper aims to unify these approaches through a layered control perspective. In particular, we establish conditions on when a ROM of locomotion yields stable walking on the full-order hybrid dynamics. To achieve this result, given an ROM we synthesize a zero dynamics manifold encoding the behavior of the ROM -- controllers can be synthesized that drive the FOM to this surface, yielding hybrid zero dynamics. We prove that a stable periodic orbit in the ROM implies an input-to-state stable periodic orbit of the FOM's hybrid zero dynamics, and hence the FOM dynamics. This result is demonstrated in simulation on a linear inverted pendulum ROM and a 5-link planar walking FOM.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2509.00294,
title = {A Layered Control Perspective on Legged Locomotion: Embedding Reduced Order Models via Hybrid Zero Dynamics},
author = {Sergio A. Esteban and Max H. Cohen and Adrian B. Ghansah and Aaron D. Ames},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.00294},
year = {2025}
}