CB: Exploring neuroscience with a humanoid research platform

Abstract

In this video presentation we introduce a 50 degrees of freedom humanoid robot, CB - <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Computational</i> <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Brain</i> [1]. CB is a humanoid robot created for exploring the underlying processing of the human brain while dealing with the real world. We place our investigations within real world contexts, as humans do. In so doing, we focus on utilising a system that is closer to humans - in sensing, kinematics configuration and performance. We present a full-body compliance controller that was developed for the motion control of our humanoid robot [2]. Our initial experimentation on our system includes: 1) full-body compliant control - physical interactions/balancing/motion control; 2) the integrated visual ocular-motor responses; 3) perception and control - reaching, foveation, and active object recognition; 4) our studies of Central Pattern Generator for walking.