2014 IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots

Recent developments in human-robot interaction show how the ability to communicate with people in a natural way is of great importance for artificial agents. The implementation of facial expressions has been found to significantly increase the interaction capabilities of humanoid robots. For speech, displaying a correct articulation with sound is mandatory to avoid audiovisual illusions like the M... View full abstract»

In this paper we present our new full-sized anthropometrically correct humanoid robot Herbert. Herbert has 18 DOF: 1) 14 active DOFs (2 × 1 DOFs in the knees, 2×3 in the hips, 3 in the waist and 3 in the head); 2) 4 passive DOFs (2 × 2 in the ankles). We follow a simple design approach while keeping the costs low but ensuring high-performance is achieved. We employed a modular... View full abstract»

This paper presents a new full sized humanoid leg robot that combines aesthetics and design theory with practical research goals in robotics. The research goal of the robot is to create human-like and compliant motion in multiple contact situations through the use of torque controlled joints. Low gear ratio and direct connections are used at each joint for low-friction and back-drivability but wit... View full abstract»

This paper presents a novel method for making ligamentous articulations for robots. Ligamentous joints are widely found in animals, but they have been of limited application in robotics due to lack of analogous synthetic materials. The method presented combines 3D printing, tow laying and thermoplastic welding which enables manufacturing of this type of structure. View full abstract»

This paper presents a novel Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) linear actuator and its application driving the joints of an anthropomorphic robotic hand. Its main feature is that it is a flexible SMA actuator, it is designed so that it can be bent. The possibility of bending the actuator while preserving its capacity to produce a linear movement allows to use very long SMA wires, able to yield a great linea... View full abstract»

In bio-inspired robotic applications, multiple-degree-of-freedom actuators are often desired. The current state of the art of variable stiffness actuators consist mostly of different concepts for single-degree-of-freedom joints. An innovative Mechanically Adjustable Compliance and Controllable Equilibrium Position Actuator (MACCEPA) concept is presented to specifically accommodate implementation i... View full abstract»

To enable a humanoid robot to use its hand in the whole body motions, such as hanging, climbing or using a ladder, we developed a robot hand driven by a powerful but backdrivable cluster EHA. A miniature crescent trochoid pump with high discharging pressure was developed. The design of a direct casted cylinder manifold with low hydraulic friction is also presented. Results of basic experiments suc... View full abstract»

We present a Hierarchical and Adaptive Mobile Manipulator Planner (HAMP) that plans for both the base and the arm in a judicious manner - allowing the manipulator to change its configuration autonomously when needed if the current arm configuration is in collision with the environment as the mobile manipulator moves along the planned path. This is in contrast to current implemented approaches that... View full abstract»

In this paper we describe a probabilistic framework that models the interaction between multiple objects in a scene. We present a spatio-temporal feature encoding pairwise interactions between each object in the scene. By the use of a kernel representation we embed object interactions in a vector space which allows us to define a metric comparing interactions of different temporal extent. Using th... View full abstract»

Accurate robot camera calibration is a requirement for vision guided robots to perform precision assembly tasks. In this paper, we address the problem of doing intrinsic camera and hand-eye calibration on a robot vision system using a single point marker. This removes the need for using bulky special purpose calibration objects, and also facilitates on line accuracy checking and re-calibration whe... View full abstract»

The inverted pendulum model (IPM) represents better a human-like gait, however, its nonlinearity introduced by the impact during the change of support leg prevents its implementation. The analytic feature of the Linear Inverted Pendulum Model (LIPM) makes it widely applied for the bipedal gait control and balance recovery. We resolve the analytic solution issue for the IPM by using the principle o... View full abstract»

In this paper we focus on a perception system for cognitive interaction between robots and humans especially for learning to recognize objects in household environments. Therefore we propose a novel three layered framework for object learning to bridge the gap between the robot's recognition capabilities at lower neural level to the higher cognitive level of humans using the weighted fusion of mul... View full abstract»

This paper presents a method of designing a natural human-like walking pattern for a bipedal humanoid robot. Motivated by biomechanical studies on human walking, we model the walking pattern with continuous and differentiable mathematical functions. For stable walking of the robot, we design a pattern generator based on the ZMP (Zero-Moment Point) criterion. The proposed walking pattern involves t... View full abstract»

Mobile manipulators and humanoid robots should be able to utilize their manipulation capabilities to move obstacles out of their way. This concept is captured within the domain of Navigation Among Movable Obstacles (NAMO). While a variety of NAMO algorithms exists, they typically assume full world knowledge. In contrast, real robot systems only have limited sensor range and partial environment kno... View full abstract»

In this research, we demonstrated dexterous manipulation of sheet-like elastic objects, namely, playing cards, using a high-speed robot system. In particular, our goal was to achieve card throwing and card shooting towards a target object by using a high-speed multifingered robot hand and visual feedback based on a vision system. We discuss card grasping in the initial state by analyzing the motio... View full abstract»

For the control of robots, like bipedal robots, an accurate system model with the corresponding inertial parameters can enhance the performance of the control algorithms significantly. This paper presents a convenient method for identification of the static inertial parameters with minimal sensor effort. Next to the identification method itself an approach for the calculation of optimal exciting i... View full abstract»

We present an approach for visually detecting collisions between a robot's hand and an object during grasping. This allows to detect unintended premature collisions between parts of the hand and the object which might lead to failure of the grasp if they went unnoticed. Our approach is based on visually perceiving that the object starts to move, and is thus a good complement for force-based contac... View full abstract»

This paper describes an algorithm for the probabilistic fusion of sensor data from a variety of modalities (inertial, kinematic and LIDAR) to produce a single consistent position estimate for a walking humanoid. Of specific interest is our approach for continuous LIDAR-based localization which maintains reliable drift-free alignment to a prior map using a Gaussian Particle Filter. This module can ... View full abstract»

One popular approach to controlling humanoid robots is through inverse kinematics (IK) with stiff joint position tracking. On the other hand, inverse dynamics (ID) based approaches have gained increasing acceptance by providing compliant motions and robustness to external perturbations. However, the performance of such methods is heavily dependent on high quality dynamic models, which are often ve... View full abstract»

Several studies have been attempted on human walking assistance using exoskeleton robots. To achieve the effective walking assistance with a variety of user motions, the robot behaviors need to be coordinated with both predicted user motions and the environment spatiotemporally. In this paper, we study how movement prediction and temporal synchronization can be beneficial for walking assist exoske... View full abstract»

The creation of social empathie communication channels between social robots and humans has started to become reality. Nowadays, the development of empathie and affective agents is giving to scientists another way to explore the social dimension of human beings. In this work, we introduce the FACE humanoid project that aims at creating a social and emotional android. FACE is an android head with a... View full abstract»

This paper presents a new method of realizing high-speed bipedal running with a high-speed robot using highspeed visual feedback. First, to achieve high-speed running with simple control, we developed a biped robot composed of lightweight high-torque actuators. Next we propose a control strategy which does not depend on typical methods based on a zero moment point, but instead modifies the robot's... View full abstract»

Postural control of humanoid robots during locomotion tasks has been typically focused in keeping balance by means of classic feedback control systems. The study of human behaviour in postural control reveals the existence of an anticipative component for postural control introduced by means of a feedforward system. This anticipative subsystem is in charge of preparing the human or humanoid system... View full abstract»

Autonomous and teleoperated robots have been proven to be capable of solving complex manipulation tasks. However, autonomous robots can only be deployed in predefined domains and teleoperation requires full attention of a human operator. Therefore, combining autonomous capabilities of the robot with teleoperation is desirable, yet balancing the work load between robot and operator for intuitive hu... View full abstract»

RoboBrain proposes a biologically inspired `blueprint' software architecture for humanoid robots that maps the main functions of the human brain. Given the extreme complexity of designing such an architecture, our intention is to provide a basic robots' IT command and control foundation with minimal required components to address humanoid robots' functionality needs. Our approach integrates the `m... View full abstract»