Kengo Toda

Sensor-based biped gait generation scheme for humanoid - implementation and evaluation

A new gait generation method, called sensor-based biped gait generation, for humanoids is proposed here. The proposed method chooses a gait generating method from a set of prepared ones according to sensor measurements of robots environment and to its behavior state. A gait generator that is based on the proposed method is designed and implemented onto an original humanoid to demonstrate its effectiveness.

An Adaptive Biped Gait Generation Scheme Utilizing Characteristics of Various Gaits

The purpose of this study is to develop a biped locomotion movement generator, named the Sensor-Based Gait Generation system, for humanoid robots that puts biped locomotion to practical use in real environment. The proposed method, in short a gait generator, enables humanoids to use various gaits according to walking surface condition. Policies and structure of the Sensor-Based Gait Generation system are described. A gait generator that is based on the proposed method is designed and implemented onto an original humanoid to demonstrate effectiveness of the proposed method. Human beings clearly differentiate their walking movements on the downward slope, on the slippery surface and on the flat ground. In other words, humans use a gait that is appropriate to the condition of the walking surface. At present, however, most humanoid robots use only a single gait with possibly adjustable parameters and therefore have clear disadvantage compared with humans. The proposed method imitates gait selection strategy of human and thus eliminates this deficiency. Many gait generation methods have been proposed already. A gait generated by any one of those methods has good characteristics and shortcomings and therefore has advantages and disadvantages against a given walking surface condition. When humanoids adopt the proposed gait generator, they will be able not only to walk on every road conditions but also to take advantages of good characteristics of each gait. Especially, we focus on policies of the Sensor-Based Gait Generation system in this paper. One of the two major topics is the explanation of its main components and the other is the configuration of criteria for gait evaluation. In addition, structure of the Sensor-Based Gait Generation system based on this methodology is discussed. After explaining the developed and implemented system that realizes the proposed method, details of environment for experiments are described. Experimental results clearly exhibit practical advantages of the proposed method. Capabilities of the implemental system shown by experimental results are summarized. Conclusions and items for further study are listed at the end.

Stabilization of Biped Locomotion Utilizing Compensation in Double-Supporting Phase

A gait generation method for biped robots that realizes stabilization of the single-supporting phase by taking advantage of robustness of the double-supporting phase is developed. Considering these points, the proposed method utilizes the double-supporting phase to eliminate disturbances that are caused by ground condition and/or other factors affecting stability of biped locomotion. In our method, ample stability margin in the double-supporting phase is also exploited to realize the angular momentum that is required by the next single-supporting phase. The proposed method can achieve more stable continuous walk due to these features. In this paper, the proposed gait generation method is explained in detail and some results of experiments using originally developed humanoid robot are reported.