Human-like walking with knee stretched, heel-contact and toe-off motion by a humanoid robot

TLDR

The study proposes the humanoid robot WABIAN‑2R, designed for human‑like walking with stretched knees and heel‑contact and toe‑off motions, and introduces a ZMP‑based algorithm for generating such patterns. WABIAN‑2R features two 1‑DOF passive foot joints for toe bending, 6‑DOF legs, 2‑DOF pelvis and trunk, 7‑DOF arms with 3‑DOF hands, a 3‑DOF neck, and employs a genetic algorithm to optimize foot‑trajectory parameters for continuous, smooth leg motion. Software simulations and walking experiments confirm that the pattern‑generation algorithm and the robot’s mechanism enable more human‑like walking styles.

Abstract

A humanoid robot, WABIAN-2R, capable of human-like walk with stretched knees and heel-contact and toe-off motions is proposed in this paper. WABIAN-2R has two 1-DOF passive joints in its feet to enable it to bend its toes in steady walking. Further, it has two 6-DOF legs, a 2-DOF pelvis, a 2-DOF trunk, two 7-DOF arms with 3-DOF hands, and a 3-DOF neck. In addition, a new algorithm for generating walking patterns with stretched knees and heel-contact and toe-off motions based on the ZMP criterion is described. In this pattern generation, some parameters of the foot trajectories of a biped robot are optimized by using a genetic algorithm in order to generate a continuous and smooth leg motion. Software simulations and walking experiments are conducted, and the effectiveness of the pattern generation and mechanism of WABIAN-2R, which have the ability to realize more human-like walking styles in a humanoid robot, are confirmed