Humanoid Dynamic Synchronization Through Whole-Body Bilateral Feedback Teleoperation

Abstract

This paper presents a method to achieve human and legged robot dynamic synchronization through bilateral feedback teleoperation. Our study shows how we can explore the interplay between human Extrapolated Center of Mass and the contact forces with the environment in order to transmit to the robot the underlying balancing and stepping strategy. All the necessary key equations for the frontal plane coupled dynamics are presented along with the human feedback law derived from the proposed state normalization in length and time. Here, we pay special attention to how the natural frequency of each system influences the resulting motion and analyze how the coupled system responds to various robot sizes. Experiments in which a human operator controls a simulated bipedal robot show how the Balance Feedback Interface force varies according to different scales and responds to external disturbances. Finally, we show the method's robustness to uneven terrain and how we can allow the point feet robot to synchronously take steps with the operator. This is an introductory study that aims to grant legged robots motor capabilities for power manipulation comparable to humans.