WHOLE-BODY COOPERATIVE BALANCED MOTION GENERATION FOR REACHING

Abstract

This paper addresses a construction method of a system that realizes whole body reaching motion of humanoids. Humanoids have many redundant degrees of freedom for reaching, and even the base can be moved by making the robot step. Therefore, there are infinite final posture solutions for a final goal position of reaching, and there are also infinite solutions for reaching trajectories that realize a final reaching posture. It is, however, difficult to find an appropriate solution because of the constraint of dynamic balance, and relatively narrow movable range for each joint. We prepared basic postures heuristically, and a final reaching posture is generated by modifying one of them. Heuristics, such as the fact that kneeling down is suitable for reaching near the ground, can be implemented easily by using this method. Methods that compose the reaching system, that is, basic posture selection, modification of postures for generating final reaching postures, balance compensation, footstep planning to realize desired feet position, and generation and execution of whole body motion to final reaching postures are described. Reaching to manually set positions and picking up a bat at various postures using visual information are shown as experiments to show the performance of the system.