Robot motion description and real-time management with the Harmonic Motion Description Protocol

We describe the Harmonic Motion Description Protocol (HMDP), that can serve as a part in tools for rapid prototyping of behaviors in a hybrid simulation real robot environment. In particular, we are focusing on the RoboCup 3D Soccer Simulation League server that is currently evolving rapidly, and becomes a more and more useful open source, general purpose simulation environment for physical Multiagent systems. HMDP uses harmonic functions to describe motions. It allows for superposition of motions and is therefore capable of describing parametric motions. Thus, typical open loop motions (walking on spot, forward, turning, standing up) of small humanoid robots are readily available and can be optimized by hand. In conjunction with the HMDP some software tools and a small real-time motion generator (called Motion Machine) have been developed. The current implementation is very flexible to use and can easily be implemented in rather small embedded systems. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.