Motion Planning for a Humanoid Walking in a 3D Space

Most motion planners solve problems defined in a 2D workspace for mobile robots or in a 3D workspace for fixed-based manipulators or free-flying objects. Human beings move on a smooth or stair-like 2D surface of a 3D workspace. Such a motion-planning problem differ from the general piano mover’s problem on that the definition of obstacle region not only depends on the local relative height but also on the capability of a humanoid such as foot length. In this paper, we describe a planner capable of generating humanoid motions in 3D space on stair-like terrains by taking the human foot length and personal preference into consideration. A gross motion plan that satisfies the constraints is produced and passed to a locomotion generator that generates an appropriate human walking motion. Our experiments show that the planner is efficient and can be used to generate real-time humanoid animations on stair-like terrains.