Paper Info
Title
Human-Oriented Biped Robot Design: Insights into the Development of a truly Anthropomorphic Leg
Abstract
In this paper we present a human-oriented ap- proach to the study of the biped gait for a humanoid robot. Starting from the analysis of the human lower-limbs, we figured out which features of the human legs are fundamental for a correct walking motion and can be adopted in the mechanical design of a humanoid robot. In particular we focus here on the knee, designed as a compliant human-like knee instead of a classical pin-joint. For the foot we tried to reproduce in a simple mechanical device the mobility and lightness of the human foot, which is very different from a flat surface and has a big impact on walking. We complete the presentation with considerations about the energy consumption of our humanoid design. In our approach the robot gains in adaptability and energetic efficiency, which are the most challenging issues for a biped robot. I. INTRODUCTION During the last decade many advancements in the field of robotics have produced robots that are well integrated in the industry. Nevertheless the kinematic structure of these systems is limited in the mobility and in the number of tasks that they can perform. This is more evident if we intend to apply those robots in an unstructured environment like home, where movements are based on the human kinematic abilities, and should be performed with some compliance. The common solution for mobility is a wheeled traction system. This usually is a simple manner to move on flat floors, and is efficient from the energetic point of view (during the movement the center of mass acts on a straight line). However it presents important limitations, for example it is not possible for such a robot to overcome obstacles bigger than the wheels dimensions. Those limitations can be overcome if the robot is equipped with legs, that normally act by increasing the robot's DOF(Degrees of Freedom). Many studies were conducted on legged robot in order to improve their efficiency and stability. A pioneering contribution was done by Professors Kato and Takanishi (1) at the Waseda University (Tokyo). Several modern robots are designed to walk and behave like humans (2) (3) but until now the efficiency of the human gait is still far from being reached. In this sense, the work of McGeer (4) can be considered exemplar. His passive dynamic walker made a stable gait without close position control, considering the walking motion as a natural oscillation of a double pendulum; and this is actually how humans seem to walk (5) (6). His results inspired many other works, such as the stability analysis (7) and the physical implementation (8) (9) (10) of several prototypes. In this paper we present LARP (Light Adaptive-Reactive biPed), our humanoid legged system, with the aim to explain how the mechanical design makes the robot able to adapt to the real operating environment. Our aim was to create a system that could represent a good model of human lower limbs, in order to understand how the natural walking motion is achieved and how it can be implemented in a humanoid robot. For this reason, we adopted anthropomorphic feet, knees and a mass-distribution similar to the human limbs. LARP (figure 1) has twelve active degrees of freedom; the range of motion of each joint is similar to that of humans during walking. It is 90 cm tall and weights less than five kg, being entirely made by pieces cut out from a polycarbonate sheet with laser cutting technology. Each leg has 6 actuated degrees of freedom, each foot has two passive degrees of freedom.
Year
DOI
Venue
2007
10.1109/ROBOT.2007.363913
Roma
Keywords
Field
DocType
humanoid robots,legged locomotion,anthropomorphic leg,biped gait analysis,human-like knee,human-oriented biped robot design,humanoid robot,mechanical design,walking motion
Adaptability,Mechanical design,Robot control,Gait,Simulation,Control engineering,Engineering,Robot,Energy consumption,Mobile robot,Humanoid robot
Conference
Volume
Issue
ISSN
2007
1
1050-4729 E-ISBN : 1-4244-0602-1
ISBN
Citations 
PageRank 
1-4244-0602-1
7
0.79
References 
Authors
10
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Giuseppina Gini113336.39
Umberto Scarfogliero2589.32
Michele Folgheraiter34411.96