Dynamic Multi-contact Transitions for Humanoid Robots

Abstract

This thesis presents a new method for planning and controlling dynamic multi-contact motions for humanoid robots. The motion planner takes a sequence of multi-contact stances and generates closed-form reference trajectories for the robot center of mass (CoM) position, velocity, and acceleration, based on the concept of Divergent Component of Motion (DCM). The timing of the contact transitions and the end-effector trajectories are automatically computed such that the motion is feasible with respect to kinematic and dynamic constraints. The constraints are verified using a simplified model of the humanoid robot to achieve a very fast planner that finds a feasible solution within several seconds. The reference trajectories serve as inputs to a passivity-based whole-body controller which includes a DCM controller for tracking the CoM trajectory. The robustness of the method is demonstrated in simulation and experiments with the humanoid robot TORO.