Evolution of humanoid robot and contribution of various countries in advancing the research and development of the platform

A human like autonomous robot which is capable to adapt itself with the changing of its environment and continue to reach its goal is considered as Humanoid Robot. These characteristics differs the Android from the other kind of robots. In recent years there has been much progress in the development of Humanoid and still there are a lot of scopes in this field. A number of research groups are interested in this area and trying to design and develop a various platforms of Humanoid based on mechanical and biological concept. Many researchers focus on the designing of lower torso to make the Robot navigating as like as a normal human being do. Designing the lower torso which includes west, hip, knee, ankle and toe, is the more complex and more challenging task. Upper torso design is another complex but interesting task that includes the design of arms and neck. Analysis of walking gait, optimal control of multiple motors or other actuators, controlling the Degree of Freedom (DOF), adaptability control and intelligence are also the challenging tasks to make a Humanoid to behave like a human. Basically research on this field combines a variety of disciplines which make it more thought-provoking area in Mechatronics Engineering. In this paper a various platforms for Humanoid Robot development are identified and described based on the evolutionary research on robotics. The paper also depicts a virtual map of humanoid platform development from the ancient time to present time. It is very important and effective to analyze the development phases of androids because of its Business, Educational and Research value. Basic comparisons between the different designs of Humanoid Structures are also analyzed in this paper. ©ICROS

Bipedal humanoid robot control by fuzzy adjustment of the reference walking plane

The two-legged humanoid structure has advantages for an assistive robot in the human living and working environment. A bipedal humanoid robot can avoid typical obstacles at homes and offices, reach consoles and appliances designed for human use and can be carried in human transport vehicles. Also, it is speculated that the absorption of robots in the human shape into the human society can be easier than that of other artificial forms. However, the control of bipedal walk is a challenge. Walking performance on solely even floor is not satisfactory. The complications of obtaining a balanced walk are dramatically more pronounced on uneven surfaces like inclined planes, which are quite commonly encountered in human surroundings. The difficulties lie in a variety of tasks ranging from sensor and data fusion to the design of adaptation systems which respond to changing surface conditions. This thesis presents a study on bipedal walk on inclined planes with changing slopes. A Zero Moment Point (ZMP) based gait synthesis technique is employed. The pitch angle reference for the foot sole plane −as expressed in a coordinate frame attached at the robot body − is adjusted online by a fuzzy logic system to adapt to different walking surface slopes. Average ankle pitch torques and the average value of the body pitch angle, computed over a history of a predetermined number of sampling instants, are used as the inputs to this system. The proposed control method is tested via walking experiments with the 29 degreesof- freedom (DOF) human-sized full-body humanoid robot SURALP (Sabanci University Robotics Research Laboratory Platform). Experiments are performed on even floor and inclined planes with different slopes. The results indicate that the approach presented is successful in enabling the robot to stably enter, ascend and leave inclined planes with 15 percent (8.5 degrees) grade. The thesis starts with a terminology section on bipedal walking and introduces a number of successful humanoid robot projects. A survey of control techniques for the walk on uneven surfaces is presented. The design and construction of the experimental robotic platform SURALP is discussed with the mechanical, electronic, walking reference generation and control aspects. The fuzzy reference adjustment system proposed for the walk on inclined planes is detailed and experimental results are presented

Walking trajectory generation & control of the humanoid robot: suralp

In recent years, the operational area of the robots started to extend and new functionalities are planned for them in our daily environments. As the human-robot interaction is being improved, the robots can provide support in elderly care, human assistance, rescue, hospital attendance and many other areas. With this motivation, an intensive research is focused around humanoid robotics in the last four decades. However, due to the nonlinear dynamics of the robot and high number of degrees of freedom, the robust balance of the bipedal walk is a challenging task. Smooth trajectory generation and online compensation methods are necessary to achieve a stable walk. In this thesis, Cartesian foot position references are generated as periodic functions with respect to a body-fixed coordinate frame. The online adjustment of these parameterized trajectories provides an opportunity in tuning the walking parameters without stopping the robot. The major contribution of this thesis in the context of trajectory generation is the smoothening of the foot trajectories and the introduction of ground push motion in the vertical direction. This pushing motion provided a dramatic improvement in the stability of the walking. Even though smooth foot reference trajectories are generated using the parameter based functions, the realization of a dynamically stable walk and maintenance of the robot balance requires walking control algorithms. This thesis introduces various control techniques to cope with disturbances or unevenness of the walking environment and compensate the mismatches between the planned and the actual walking based on sensory feedback. Moreover, an automatic homing procedure is proposed for the adjustment of the initial posture before the walking experiments. The presented control algorithms include ZMP regulation, foot orientation control, trunk orientation control, foot pitch torque difference compensation, body pitch angle correction, ground impact compensation and early landing modification. The effectiveness of the proposed trajectory generation and walking control algorithms is tested on the humanoid robot SURALP and a stable walk is achieved

Mechanical design of small-size humanoid robot TWNHR-3

[[abstract]]In this paper, a mechanical structure with 26 DOFs (degrees of freedom) is proposed so that an implemented small-size humanoid robot named TWNHR-3 is able to accomplish the man-like walking motion. The height and weight of the implemented robot is 46 cm and 3.1 kg, respectively. There are 2 DOFs on the head, 2 DOFs on the trunk, 4 DOFs on each arm, and 7 DOFs on each leg. Some basic walking experiments of TWNHR-3 are presented to illustrate that the proposed mechanical structure lets the robot move forward, turn, and slip effectively.[[conferencetype]]國際[[conferencedate]]20071105~20071108[[iscallforpapers]]Y[[conferencelocation]]Taipei, Taiwa