Mechanism and control of biped walking robot with 3 DOF waist

This paper describes the mechanism and the control of the Kanagawa Biped walking Robot No.1 (KBR-1) capable of imitating human walking motion. The KBR-1 is made of two six degree of freedom (DOF) legs and a 3 DOF waist. Its leg system consists of two 2 DOF ankles, two 1 DOF knees and two 3 DOF hips. It is designed with a large movable range like a human. For the biped robot to walk stably, a compensatory control method is employed which is based on the motion of the waist. The control method is to cancel the moments generated by the motion of the legs. Using the KBR-1, various walking experiments are conducted, and the effectiveness of the mechanism and the control method is confirmed.