Gait Generation and Transition of a Biped Robot Based on Kinematic Synergy in Human Locomotion

Abstract

Humans have an extremely redundant system for locomotion. To handle the redundancy problem, humans use coordinative structures using conditions of constraint in their joint movements to reduce the number of degrees of freedom, which is called kinematic synergy. This chapter shows some characteristics in the kinematic synergy in human locomotion and shows a locomotion control system for a biped robot, which is inspired by the physiological concept of Central Pattern Generator (CPG) and phase resetting to produce gaits (quadrupedal and bipedal locomotion) and change them based on the kinematic synergy to tackle the redundancy problem in the motion planning of the robot.