Balance of penalty kicking for a biped robot

Penalty kicking is a specific task for humanoid robots, which is defined by the robotic soccer community. An effective and powerful kicking is a challenging task because of balance. During the period of kicking, the kicking leg moves very quickly and therefore the dynamics should not be ignored. Furthermore, during the kicking, the center of gravity of the robot moves to the front. These two factors greatly influence the balance of the humanoid robot. In this paper, we keep the robot balanced through adjusting the stance leg's ankle joint, both the dynamics and CG changes are considered. The performance and applicability of the proposed method are illustrated both through simulation and real-time control of a humanoid robot developed by the Humanoid Group (www.robo-erectus.org) at Singapore Polytechnic.