Whole-body Motion Planning with Simple Dynamics and Full Kinematics

摘要

Abstract : To plan dynamic, whole-body motions for robots one conventionally faces the choice between a complex, fullbody dynamic model containing every link and actuator of the robot, or a highly simplified model of the robot as a point mass. In this paper we explore a powerful middle ground between these extremes. We present an approach to generate whole-body motions using a simple dynamics model, which enforces that the linear and angular momentum of the robot be consistent with the external wrenches on the robot, and a full-body kinematics model that enforces rich geometric constraints, such as end-effector positioning or collision avoidance. We obtain a trajectory for the robot and profiles of contact wrenches by solving a nonlinear optimization problem (NLP). We further demonstrate that we can plan without pre-specifying the contact sequence by exploiting the complementarity conditions between contact forces and contact distance. We demonstrate that this algorithm is capable of generating highly-dynamic motion plans with examples of a humanoid robot negotiating obstacle course elements and gait optimization for a quadrupedal robot.