A development of humanoid robot HRP-2 is presented in this paper. HRP-2 is a humanoid robotics platform, which we developed in phase two of HRP. HRP was a humanoid robotics project, which had run by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) of Japan from 1998FY to 2002FY for five years. The ability of the biped locomotion of HRP-2 is improved so that HRP-2 can cope with uneven surface, can walk at two third level of human speed, and can walk on a narrow path. The ability of whole body motion of HRP-2 is also improved so that HRP-2 can get up by a humanoid robot's own self if HRP-2 tips over safely. In this paper, the appearance design, the mechanisms, the electrical systems, specifications, and features upgraded from its prototype are also introduced.

Humanoid robot HRP-2

In this paper, the development of humanoid robot HRP-3 is presented. HRP-3, which stands for Humanoid Robotics Platform-3, is a human-size humanoid robot developed as the succeeding model of HRP-2. One of features of HRP-3 is that its main mechanical and structural components are designed to prevent the penetration of dust or spray. Another is that its wrist and hand are newly designed to improve manipulation. Software for a humanoid robot in a real environment is also improved. We also include information on mechanical features of HRP-3 and together with the newly developed hand. Also included are the technologies implemented in HRP-3 prototype. Electrical features and some experimental results using HRP-3 are also presented.

Humanoid robot HRP-3

As robots are gradually leaving highly structured factory environments and moving into human populated environments, they need to possess more complex cognitive abilities. They do not only have to operate efficiently and safely in natural, populated environments, but also be able to achieve higher levels of cooperation and communication with humans. Human–robot collaboration (HRC) is a research field with a wide range of applications, future scenarios, and potentially a high economic impact. HRC is an interdisciplinary research area comprising classical robotics, cognitive sciences, and psychology. This paper gives a survey of the state of the art of HRC. Established methods for intention estimation, action planning, joint action, and machine learning are presented together with existing guidelines to hardware design. This paper is meant to provide the reader with a good overview of technologies and methods for HRC.

Human–robot collaboration: a survey

The goal of this paper is to demonstrate the capacity of Model Predictive Control to generate stable walking motions without the use of predeﬁned foot steps. Building up on well-known Model Predictive Control schemes for walking motion generation, we show that a minimal modiﬁcation of these schemes allows designing an online walking motion generator which can track a given reference speed of the robot and decide automatically the foot step placement. Simulation results are proposed on the HRP-2 humanoid robot, showing a signiﬁcant improvement over previous approaches.

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Online Walking Motion Generation with Automatic Foot Step Placement

With the increasing complexity of humanoid mechanisms and their desired capabilities, there is a pressing need for a generalized framework where a desired whole-body motion behavior can be easily specified and controlled. Our hypothesis is that human motion results from simultaneously performing multiple objectives in a hierarchical manner, and we have analogously developed a prioritized, multiple-task control framework. The operational space formulation10 provides dynamic models at the task level and structures for decoupled task and posture control.13 This formulation allows for posture objectives to be controlled without dynamically interfering with the operational task. Achieving higher performance of posture objectives requires precise models of their dynamic behaviors. In this paper we complete the picture of task descriptions and whole-body dynamic control by establishing models of the dynamic behavior of secondary task objectives within the posture space. Using these models, we present a whole-body control framework that decouples the interaction between the task and postural objectives and compensates for the dynamics in their respective spaces.

/pdf/whole-body-dynamic-behavior-and-control-of-human-like-robots-7urz3atv55.pdf

Whole-body dynamic behavior and control of human-like robots

This paper proposes the integrated motion control method to make a bipedal humanoid walk, jump and run. This method generates dynamically consistent motion patterns in real-time based on the concept of the dynamics filter, which assures that the force and the moment generated by the robot can equilibrate with that caused by the environment. The validity of the algorithm is verified by the dynamic simulation. The proposed method is applied to the real humanoid "QRIO" under the adaptive controls, and stable walking, jumping and running including the transitions between them are realized.

Integrated motion control for walking, jumping and running on a small bipedal entertainment robot

SDR-4X is the latest prototype model, which remains a small humanoid type robot and is expanding its capabilities for the adaptability in home environment. Some of the new key technologies have been developed for SDR-4X. The first is newly developed small robot actuators named ISA-4, the second is real-time integrated adaptive motion control. The third is a motion creating software system, which allows us to create SDR's attractive motion performances. The fourth technology is real-time real-world space perception, and the fifth is multi-modal human robot interaction. These five technologies enable to realize a capable robot that can be adopted with human in home environment. In addition, we have explored and developed entertainment applications using these technologies. A cappella chorus performance and a high-tempo dance performance are introduced as the attractive applications.

A small biped entertainment robot exploring attractive applications

SDR-4X is a small biped entertainment robot with expanded capabilities for a variety of motion performances. We developed the SDR motion creating system and the whole body adaptive motion control for SDR. This software system makes it easy to produce creative motion performances that include stable biped walking and dance steps synchronized to music. The motion creating system is composed of two parts: the motion editor used to edit upper body motion and whole body motion, and the foot trajectory editor used to create stable lower body motion. Once the upper and lower body motions are created, the system allows the motion designer to inspection the whole body motion before applying it to SDR-4X. The process of creating a fast-paced dance performance is introduced as an attractive application of this software system.

/pdf/motion-creating-system-for-a-small-biped-entertainment-robot-4ojh3c55py.pdf

Motion creating system for a small biped entertainment robot

We have been developing a small biped entertainment robot and expanding its capabilities for adaptability and mobility in the home environment with enhanced core technologies. Conspicuous enhancements are a new robot actuator, ISA and Real-time Integrated Adaptive Motion Control System as a comprehensive motion control for SDR to realize the dynamic and smooth/elegant motion performances. In order to evaluate the basic motion control capabilities we propose a new motion evaluating system for a small biped entertainment robot. The system is composed of the SDR Motion Base and the control system. We have developed a serial-parallel hybrid type mechanism to apply for the basic experiment of SDR's motion control capabilities. We discuss the design concept of the motion evaluating system and the experimental method using the proposed Motion Base.

J. Yamaguchi

Papers

Integrated motion control for walking, jumping and running on a small bipedal entertainment robot

A small biped entertainment robot exploring attractive applications

Motion creating system for a small biped entertainment robot

Motion evaluating system for a small biped entertainment robot