Motion creating system for a small biped entertainment robot

We have built a small humanoid entertainment robot SDR4X (Sony Dream Robot, a prototype) which does motion performances that are dynamic and elegant. It achieves these performances using newly developed robot actuators, the Intelligent Servo Actuator (ISA) and a control system called Whole Body Cooperative and Real-time Integrated Adaptive Motion Control [5][6]. To support motion control for SDR-4X, we have developed a software system for creating motion, the SDR Motion Creating System. The SDR Motion Creating System runs on PC computers. The purpose of this study is to develop an environment for engineers, designers and artists – other than robot specialists – to produce creative motion performances for SDR4X. The Motion Creating System has a rich user interface especially suited to creating and editing a variety of motions, including stable biped walking and motion performances synchronized to music. Because the Motion Creating System uses the same Gait Pattern Generator and Motion Stabilizer as the SDR-4X robot, the system produces behavior that works correctly on the physical robot. Yoshihiro Kuroki*1, Bill Blank*3, Tatsuo Mikami*1, Patrick Mayeux*3, Atsushi Miyamoto*1, Robert Playter*3, Ken’ichiro Nagasaka*1, Marc Raibert*, Masakuni Nagano*, Jin’ichi Yamaguchi*