CB: a humanoid research platform for exploring neuroscience

TLDR

CB is a humanoid robot designed to explore human brain processing in real‑world contexts. The paper aims to use CB to study human‑like walking, compliant control, and visual‑motor perception in real‑world settings. CB employs a real‑time network‑based controller for all 50 degrees of freedom, a 1 kHz full‑state sensing system, a dynamic simulator, and a contact model to validate control strategies. The controller achieves 1 kHz full‑state sensing and control, enabling flexible control strategies.

Abstract

This paper presents a 50-d.o.f. humanoid robot, Computational Brain (CB). CB is a humanoid robot created for exploring the underlying processing of the human brain while dealing with the real world. We place our investigations within real—world contexts, as humans do. In so doing, we focus on utilizing a system that is closer to humans—in sensing, kinematics configuration and performance. We present the real-time network-based architecture for the control of all 50 d.o.f. The controller provides full position/velocity/force sensing and control at 1 kHz, allowing us the flexibility in deriving various forms of control. A dynamic simulator is also presented; the simulator acts as a realistic testbed for our controllers and acts as a common interface to our humanoid robots. A contact model developed to allow better validation of our controllers prior to final testing on the physical robot is also presented. Three aspects of the system are highlighted in this paper: (i) physical power for walking, (ii) full-body compliant control—physical interactions and (iii) perception and control—visual ocular-motor responses.