Robots that look like humans : a brief look into humanoid robotics

This article provides a brief overview of the technology of humanoid robots. First, historical development and hardware progress are presented mainly on human-size full-body biped humanoid robots, together with progress in pattern generation of biped locomotion. Then, «whole-body motion» ? coordinating leg and arm movements to fully leverage humanoids? high degrees of freedom ? is presented, followed by its applications in fields such as device evaluation and large-scale assembly. Upper-body humanoids with a mobile base, which are mainly utilized for research on human-robot interaction and cognitive robotics, are also introduced before addressing current issues and perspectives

Straight-Leg Walking Through Underconstrained Whole-Body Control

We present an approach for achieving a natural, efficient gait on bipedal robots using straightened legs and toe-off. Our algorithm avoids complex height planning by allowing a whole-body controller to determine the straightest possible leg configuration at run-time. The controller solutions are biased towards a straight leg configuration by projecting leg joint angle objectives into the null-space of the other quadratic program motion objectives. To allow the legs to remain straight throughout the gait, toe-off was utilized to increase the kinematic reachability of the legs. The toe-off motion is achieved through underconstraining the foot position, allowing it to emerge naturally. We applied this approach of under-specifying the motion objectives to the Atlas humanoid, allowing it to walk over a variety of terrain. We present both experimental and simulation results and discuss performance limitations and potential improvements.Comment: Submitted to 2018 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automatio

Emergence of Human-comparable Balancing Behaviors by Deep Reinforcement Learning

This paper presents a hierarchical framework based on deep reinforcement learning that learns a diversity of policies for humanoid balance control. Conventional zero moment point based controllers perform limited actions during under-actuation, whereas the proposed framework can perform human-like balancing behaviors such as active push-off of ankles. The learning is done through the design of an explainable reward based on physical constraints. The simulated results are presented and analyzed. The successful emergence of human-like behaviors through deep reinforcement learning proves the feasibility of using an AI-based approach for learning humanoid balancing control in a unified framework

The Future of Humanoid Robots

This book provides state of the art scientific and engineering research findings and developments in the field of humanoid robotics and its applications. It is expected that humanoids will change the way we interact with machines, and will have the ability to blend perfectly into an environment already designed for humans. The book contains chapters that aim to discover the future abilities of humanoid robots by presenting a variety of integrated research in various scientific and engineering fields, such as locomotion, perception, adaptive behavior, human-robot interaction, neuroscience and machine learning. The book is designed to be accessible and practical, with an emphasis on useful information to those working in the fields of robotics, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, computational methods and other fields of science directly or indirectly related to the development and usage of future humanoid robots. The editor of the book has extensive R&D experience, patents, and publications in the area of humanoid robotics, and his experience is reflected in editing the content of the book

Synthesis about a collaborative project on “Technology Assessment of Autonomous Systems”

The project started in 2009 with the support of DAAD in Germany and CRUP in Portugal under the “Collaborative German-Portuguese University Actions” programme. One central goal is the further development of a theory of technology assessment applied to robotics and autonomous systems in general that reflects in its methodology the changing conditions of knowledge production in modern societies and the emergence of new robotic technologies and of associated disruptive changes. Relevant topics here are handling broadened future horizons and new clusters of science and technology (medicine, engineering, interfaces, industrial automation, micro-devices, security and safety), as well as new governance structures in policy decision making concerning research and development (R&D).Robotic systems, Autonomous systems, Technology assessment, Germany, Portugal

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