Foot placement modification for a biped humanoid robot with narrow feet

Area of Science:

• Robotics
• Control Systems
• Humanoid Robots

Background:

• Conventional humanoid robots often use large feet for stability.
• Achieving stable walking with narrow, human-like feet is challenging.
• Existing stabilization controls are insufficient for narrow-footed robots.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop an advanced walking stabilization control for biped humanoid robots with narrow feet.
• To enable stable and natural walking gaits, mimicking human locomotion.
• To reduce impact forces during foot landing.

Main Methods:

• A novel control strategy modifies foot placement based on the robot's attitude angle.
• Roll axis foot angle adjustment ensures horizontal ground contact for the swing foot.
• Lateral foot-landing point adjustments prevent lateral falls.
• Virtual compliance control is applied to vertical, roll, and pitch axes to reduce landing impact.

Main Results:

• Experiments with the WABIAN-2R humanoid robot demonstrated successful knee-bended walking with 30mm breadth feet.
• The robot achieved stable walking with knee-stretched, heel-contact, and toe-off motions when equipped with a human-like foot mechanism.
• The proposed control effectively stabilized narrow-footed bipedal locomotion.

Conclusions:

• The developed walking stabilization control enables stable locomotion for narrow-footed biped humanoid robots.
• The method successfully mimics human-like walking characteristics, including foot arch mechanics.
• This research advances the development of more agile and human-compatible humanoid robots.