This paper describes walking control algorithm for the stable walking of a biped humanoid robot on an uneven and inclined floor. Many walking control techniques have been developed based on the assumption that the walking surface is perfectly flat with no inclination. Accordingly, most biped humanoid robots have performed dynamic walking on well designed flat floors. In reality, however, a typi...

This paper presents the energy analysis of a bipedal walking system. The main goal is to understand the movement strategies in walking and to search for the optimal locomotion variables that minimise a cost function related to energy. Three different indices are proposed: mean absolute power, mean power dispersion and mean power lost. In order to accomplish this goal, in the description and ana...

In this chapter, we introduce legged robots. After introducing the history of legged robot research in Sect. 16.1, we start to discuss hopping robots and analyze a simple passive walker as a typical cycling walking robot in Sect. 16.2; the Poincaré map is one of the most important tools to analyze its dynamics and stability. In Sect. 16.3, the dynamics and control of general biped robots are di...

Humanoid robots are used as a research tool to understand bipedal locomotion. When pushed, a humanoid robot must be able to avoid falling and return to a balanced configuration. This is called push recovery and can be achieved using proper foot placement. Depending on the freedom of movement, one or multiple steps are taken to accomplish this goal. It is expected that foot placement can also be...

The postural stability of bipedal robots is investigated in perspective of foot-rotation during locomotion. With foot already rotated, the biped is modeled as an underactuated kinematic structure. The stability of such biped robots is analyzed by introducing the concept of rotational stability. The rotational stability investigates whether a biped would lead to a flat-foot posture or the biped ...

This paper describes the control of a biped robot that uses an SVR (Support Vector Regression) for its balance. The control system was tested subjected to external sagittal pulling and pushing forces. Biped robots have leg link structures similar to the human’s anatomy. To be able to maintain its stability under dynamic situations such robotic systems require good mechanical designs and force s...

Robotics researchers have studied the stability maintenance requirements of bipedal robots since they are inherently unstable. An accurate postural stability measure is required to monitor their dynamic equilibrium conditions. In this article, the novel Moment-Height Stability (MHS) measure, which has previously been developed for monitoring the postural stability of wheeled mobile robots, is d...

In this paper, we present a new way to generate biped patterns online. Linear Inverted Pendulum and Zero Moment Point are employed as the dynamic basics. The simplified walking concept is introduced to describe the complete biped motions with the unit of a walking step, instead of a time step of the robot’s working time in usual methods. With this concept, the complex flexible motion planning c...