Reactive biped robot walking with on-line path generation and obstacle avoidance

The objective of this paper is to propose an approach for generating on-line walking patterns for a biped robot to navigate towards destination and reactively avoid obstacles. Kinect-based sensor system detects obstacles with velocity and dimension estimated for obstacle modeling. With identified obstacles, repulsion vectors of potential field given by obstacles modify walking path of a biped robot. On-line path generation (OPG) is proposed to generate walking path towards a target configuration including position and orientation. With reference mapping combined with walking pattern generator based on zero momentum point (ZMP), reactive walking patterns free of obstacle collision are thus created. The effectiveness of this method is confirmed on a biped robot developed in our lab, and the robot is capable of avoiding obstacles while maintaining ZMP stability. The contribution of this paper is to propose OPG for obstacle avoidance of biped robots by extending potential field method. The Demonstration of the proof of concept has been successfully conducted.