Path planning for a humanoid using NURBS curves

Abstract

In this paper we present an algorithm for planning the path of a 3 DOF mobile platform for a humanoid robot. It is simple enough to be executed online and yet powerful enough to generate a smooth path from starting point and orientation to a destination point with a different orientation. Thus we strive to achieve a human-like appearance of our robot that encourages the humans in vicinity to interact with our humanoid robot and enhances the possibilities of human-robot collaboration. We opted to use NURBS curves as the basis for our path planning algorithm