Research on biped locomotion has focused on sagittal plane walking in which the stepping path is a straight line. Because a walking path is often curved in a three dimensional environment, a 3D locomotion subsystem is required to provide general walking animation. In building a 3D locomotion subsystem, we tried to utilize pre-existing straight path (2D) systems. The movement of the center of th...

We used simulated evolution to obtain continuous time recurrent neural networks to control the locomotion of simulated bipeds. We also used the definition of center-crossing networks, so that the recurrent networks nodes can reach their areas of maximum sensitivity of their activation functions. Moreover, we incorporated a run-time adaptation of the nodes' biases to obtain such condition. We te...

In this paper we present advancements in control and trajectory generation for agile behavior in bipedal robots. We demonstrate that Whole-Body Operational Space Control (WBOSC), developed a few years ago, is well suited for achieving two types of agile behaviors, namely, balancing on a high pitch split terrain and achieving undirected walking on flat terrain. The work presented here is the fir...

The formulation and optimization of joint trajectories for a humanoid robot’s manipulator is quite different from standard robots’ because of the complexity of its kinematics and dynamics. This paper presents a formulation to solve kinematics problems to generate trajectory for a 21-DOF humanoid robot in the groping-locomotion method. The groping-locomotion method includes a basic autonomous in...

We aim at planning multi-contact sequences of stances and postures for humanoid robots. The output sequence defines the contact transitions that allow our robot to realize different kind of tasks, ranging from biped locomotion to dexterous manipulation. The central component of the planning framework is a best-first algorithm that performs a search of the contacts to be added or removed at each...

The problem of actively stable bipedal walking on small feet continues to challenge robotic engineers, controller designers,and machine learning theorists. Preliminary results with a real 10-link biped, TarBaby, are presented. This machine is designed to test new ideas in bipedal locomotion, including online tuning of key settings in a dynamic motion generator and ultimately automatic expansion...

A joint driving mechanism with antagonistic pairs of muscles is supposed to be essential for humans and animals to realize various kinds of locomotion such as walking, running, and jumping. This paper describes design and control of a biped robot “Pneu–Man” whose joints are driven by antagonistic pairs of McKibben artificial muscles. Since the body is welldesigned for walking, required control ...

Despite many efforts in the development and control of two-legged robots, nature’s solution of biped walking is still unequaled. Both the mechanical side and neural control surpass what robotics research has come up with. While the properties of the biological locomotion apparatus are fairly well understood, still there seems no technical solution for an equivalent actuation system. Unfortunate...

The paper deals with the proposed concept of a biped robot vertical stabilization robot’s base and minimization its sideways oscillations. This uses 6 actuators, which gives good preconditions for energy balance compared to purely articulated bipedal robots. In addition, used linear actuator is self-locking, so no additional required braking or keep it in stable position. direct inverse kinemat...

This paper describes a learning framework for a central pattern generator based biped locomotion controller using a policy gradient method. Our goals in this study are to achieve biped walking with a 3D hardware humanoid, and to develop an efficient learning algorithm with CPG by reducing the dimensionality of the state space used for learning. We demonstrate that an appropriate feedback contro...