A scalable joint-space controller for musculoskeletal robots with spherical joints

Abstract

In the long history of robotics research, the most prominent problem has always been, to develop robots that can safely operate in human-centered environments. One way towards the goal of a safe, and human-friendly robot, is to incorporate more and more of the flexibility that can be found in humans, by mimicking the internal mechanisms. In this work we propose a scalable joint-space control scheme based on computed torque control for an anthropomimetic robot. To achieve this, the dynamic system model of the robot is decomposed into hierarchical subsystems, using scalable modeling algorithms where possible. Machine learning techniques were employed to tackle the problem of muscle force to joint torque mapping. The developed control scheme has been evaluated using the highly refined simulation of an anthropomimetic robot arm featuring 11 muscles, a revolute elbow joint and a spherical shoulder joint. We show trajectory tracking based on a low-level muscle and a high-level joint control scheme, taking into account the coupling between the joints due to inertial reactions and bi-articular muscles.