Online footstep planning for humanoid robots

We present an online algorithm for planning sequences of footstep locations that encode goal-directed navigation strategies for humanoid robots. Planning footsteps is more general than most existing navigation methods designed for wheeled robots, since the options of stepping over or upon obstacles in a cluttered terrain are available. Given a discrete set of plausible footstep locations, a forward dynamic programming approach is used to compute a footstep sequence to a specified goal location in the environment. Heuristics designed to minimize the number and complexity of the step motions are used to encode cost functions used for searching a footstep transition graph. If successful, the planner returns an optimal sequence of footstep locations according to the cost functions and plausible sets of footstep locations defined. We show results from an experimental implementation of the algorithm running on the H7 humanoid robot. Using a stereo vision system to sense obstacles in the immediate environment and identify a target goal location, the robot updates the current optimal footstep sequence to the goal from its present location.

[1]  Nils J. Nilsson,et al.  Principles of Artificial Intelligence , 1980, IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence.

[2]  Dimitris N. Metaxas,et al.  Autonomous Animation and Control of Four- Legged Animals , 1995 .

[3]  Shigeo Hirose,et al.  A Study of Design and Control of a Quadruped Walking Vehicle , 1984 .

[4]  Miomir Vukobratović,et al.  Biped Locomotion: Dynamics, Stability, Control and Application , 1990 .

[5]  Michiel van de Panne,et al.  Footprint-based Quadruped Motion Synthesis , 1998, Graphics Interface.

[6]  Masayuki Inaba,et al.  Online mixture and connection of basic motions for humanoid walking control by footprint specification , 2001, Proceedings 2001 ICRA. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.01CH37164).

[7]  Keith Price,et al.  Review of "Principles of Artificial Intelligence by Nils J. Nilsson", Tioga Publishing Company, Palo Alto, CA, ISBN 0-935382-01-1. , 1980, SGAR.

[8]  Masayuki Inaba,et al.  Footstep planning among obstacles for biped robots , 2001, Proceedings 2001 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. Expanding the Societal Role of Robotics in the the Next Millennium (Cat. No.01CH37180).

[9]  Michiel van de Panne,et al.  From Footprints to Animation , 1997, Comput. Graph. Forum.

[10]  Vipin Kumar,et al.  Search in Artificial Intelligence , 1988, Symbolic Computation.

[11]  J. Pratt,et al.  Exploiting Natural Dynamics in the Control of a 3 D Bipedal Walking Simulation , 1999 .

[12]  Masayuki Inaba,et al.  Online generation of humanoid walking motion based on a fast generation method of motion pattern that follows desired ZMP , 2002, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.

[13]  Jean-Claude Latombe,et al.  Robot motion planning , 1970, The Kluwer international series in engineering and computer science.

[14]  Vladimir J. Lumelsky,et al.  Biped robot locomotion in scenes with unknown obstacles , 1999, Proceedings 1999 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.99CH36288C).

[15]  Christine Martin,et al.  Characteristics of voluntary visual sampling of the environment for safe locomotion over different terrains , 1996, Experimental Brain Research.

[16]  Atsuo Takanishi,et al.  Development of a bipedal humanoid robot having antagonistic driven joints and three DOF trunk , 1998, Proceedings. 1998 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. Innovations in Theory, Practice and Applications (Cat. No.98CH36190).

[17]  Michael Girard,et al.  Interactive Design of 3D Computer-Animated Legged Animal Motion , 1987, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications.

[18]  Aftab E. Patla,et al.  Local path planning during locomotion over irregular terrain , 2000 .

[19]  H. Inoue,et al.  Dynamic walking pattern generation for a humanoid robot based on optimal gradient method , 1999, IEEE SMC'99 Conference Proceedings. 1999 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (Cat. No.99CH37028).

[20]  Marion A. Eppler,et al.  Development of Visually Guided Locomotion , 1998 .

[21]  Michael Girard.  Interactive Design of 3D Computer-Animated Legged Animal Motion , 1987, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications.

[22]  T. Takenaka,et al.  The development of Honda humanoid robot , 1998, Proceedings. 1998 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.98CH36146).

[23]  Martin Buss,et al.  ViGWaM - An Emulation Environment for a Vision Guided Virtual Walking Machine , 2000 .

[24]  A. Patla.  How Is Human Gait Controlled by Vision , 1998 .