Real-world large-step stair-climbing for small humanoids using evolutionary computation

This paper considers legged robots, in author's case Nao robot, and describes a method for Real-world large-step stair-climbing for small humanoids using Evolutionary Computation. We start by providing background on existing climbing robots and popular methods to make them move, and then discuss the problem of stair climbing robots. Of particular interest is a class of problems, when the robot is not able to pick up its leg on height of one stair of the ladder because of the limitations of its geometrical parameters. We provide a genetic algorithm solution for this task; explain design of the chromosome, forming of initial population, crossover and mutation operations. Results of experiments in the Webots simulator are described. Finally, we describe our experiments with the real robot, and discuss our results.