Humanoid Robot Navigation Based on Groping Locomotion Algorithm to Avoid an Obstacle

摘要

The development of autonomous navigation system for humanoid robot to solve the problem of "working coexistence" of humans and robots is an important issue. It is apparent that the common living and working environment to be shared by humanoid robots is presently adapted mainly to human, and it cannot be expected that this will be significantly changed to suit the needs of robots. Hence, the problem of human-humanoid robot interaction, and humanoid robot-surrounding environment interaction are become the research topics that are gaining more and more in importance. Furthermore, contact interaction-based navigation system is practically significant for humanoid robots to accurately structure and recognize their surrounding conditions (Ellery, 2005, Salter et al., 2006). Research on groping locomotion in humanoid robot's navigation system has led to the proposal of a basic contact interaction method for humanoid robots to recognize and respond to their surrounding conditions. This research proposed a new obstacle avoidance method which applied reliable algorithms in a humanoid robot control system in conjunction with the groping-locomotion algorithm. The proposed method is based on contact interaction whereby the robot arms directly touch and analyze an object, with the aim of accomplishing the objective of developing an interaction method for the humanoid robot and its surroundings. Performance of the proposed method was evaluated by experiments using prototype humanoid robot Bonten-Maru II which force sensors are attached to its arms as end-effector to detect and recognize objects. The experimental results indicated that the humanoid robot could recognize the existence of an obstacle and could avoid it by generating suitable leg trajectories. The proposed algorithm was effectively operated in conjunction with the groping locomotion algorithm to detect and avoid obstacle in the correction area, which improved the performance of the groping locomotion. Regarding the motion of the