• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.287-299
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• 2008

People have expected a humanoid robot to move as naturally as a human being does. The natural movements of humanoid robot may provide people with safer physical services and communicate with persons through motions more correctly. This work presented a methodology to generate the natural motions for a humanoid robot, which are converted from human motion capture data. The methodology produces not only kinematically mapped motions but dynamically mapped ones. The kinematical mapping reflects the human-likeness in the converted motions, while the dynamical mapping could ensure the movement stability of whole body motions of a humanoid robot. The methodology consists of three processes: (a) Human modeling, (b) Kinematic mapping and (c) Dynamic mapping. The human modeling based on optimization gives the ZMP (Zero Moment Point) and COM (Center of Mass) time trajectories of an actor. Those trajectories are modified for a humanoid robot through the kinematic mapping. In addition to modifying the ZMP and COM trajectories, the lower body (pelvis and legs) motion of the actor is then scaled kinematically and converted to the motion available to the humanoid robot considering dynamical aspects. The KIST humanoid robot, Mahru, imitated a dancing motion to evaluate the methodology, showing the good agreement in the motion.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.2126-2131
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• 2005

Interactions of a humanoid with a human are important, when the humanoid is requested to provide people with human-friendly services in unknown or uncertain environment. Such interactions may require more complicated and human-like behaviors from the humanoid. In this work the arm motions of a human are discussed as the early stage of human motion imitation by a humanoid. A motion capture system is used to obtain human-friendly arm motions as references. However the captured motions may not be applied directly to the humanoid, since the differences in geometric or dynamics aspects as length, mass, degrees of freedom, and kinematics and dynamics capabilities exist between the humanoid and the human. To overcome this difficulty a method to adapt captured motions to a humanoid is developed. The geometric difference in the arm length is resolved by scaling the arm length of the humanoid with a constant. Using the scaled geometry of the humanoid the imitation of actor's arm motions is achieved by solving an inverse kinematics problem formulated using optimization. The errors between the captured trajectories of actor arms and the approximated trajectories of humanoid arms are minimized. Such dynamics capabilities of the joint motors as limits of joint position, velocity and acceleration are also imposed on the optimization problem. Two motions of one hand waiving and performing a statement in sign language are imitated by a humanoid through dynamics simulation.

• International Journal of Control, Automation, and Systems
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.217-226
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• 2006

Grasping and manipulation by hands can be considered as one of inevitable functions to achieve the performances desired in humanoid operations. When a humanoid robot manipulates an object by his hands, each finger should be well-controlled to accomplish a precise manipulation of the object grasped. So, the trajectory of each joint required for a precise finger motion is fundamentally necessary to be planned stably. In this sense, this paper proposes an effective joint motion planning method for humanoid fingers. The proposed method newly employs a bio-mimetic concept for joint motion planning. A suitable model that describes an interphalangeal coordination in a human finger is suggested and incorporated into the proposed joint motion planning method. The feature of the proposed method is illustrated by simulation results. As a result, the proposed method is useful for a facilitative finger motion. It can be applied to improve the control performance of humanoid fingers or prosthetic fingers.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.2148-2153
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• 2005

For a legged robot such as a humanoid, balancing its body during a given motion is natural but the most important problem. Recently, a motion given to a humanoid is more and more complicated, and thus the balancing problem becomes much more critical. This paper suggests a real-time motion generation algorithm that guarantees a humanoid to be balanced during the motion. A desired motion of each arm and/or leg is planned by the conventional motion planning method without considering the balancing problem. In order to balance a humanoid, all the given motions are embedded into the COG Jacobian. The COG Jacobian is modified to include the desired motions and, in consequence, dimension of the COG Jacobian is drastically reduced. With the motion-embedded COG Jacobian, balancing and performing a task is completed simultaneously, without changing any other parameters related to the control or planning. Validity and efficiency of the proposed motion-embedded COG Jacobian is simulated in the paper.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.267-272
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• 2004

In this Paper, we present analysis on the dynamics of human swing and its realization by a miniaturized humanoid robot. Since the motion of legs is the most important in the swing, the swing system can be approximated as a double pendulum. Based on Lagrangian analysis, the leg motion is designed to make the swing motion as sustained oscillation. In order to detect the peak instant of the swing and to synchronize the leg motion with the swing, we use ADXL acceleration/inclination sensor. The miniaturized humanoid in this paper has total 20 DOFs including 6 DOFs in each leg, 34cm in height, and 2kg in weight. As a result of realization of the swing by the humanoid, the sustained oscillation is verified through experiments.

• International Journal of Fuzzy Logic and Intelligent Systems
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.203-209
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• 2010

This paper presents a hierarchical fuzzy motion planner for humanoid robots in 3D uneven environments. First, we define both motion primitives and locomotion primitives of humanoid robots. A high-level planner finds a global path from a global navigation map that is generated based on a combination of 2.5 dimensional maps of the workspace. We use a passage map, an obstacle map and a gradient map of obstacles to distinguish obstacles. A mid-level planner creates subgoals that help the robot efficiently cope with various obstacles using only a small set of locomotion primitives that are useful for stable navigation of the robot. We use a local obstacle map to find the subgoals along the global path. A low-level planner searches for an optimal sequence of locomotion primitives between subgoals by using fuzzy motion planning. We verify our approach on a virtual humanoid robot in a simulated environment. Simulation results show a reduction in planning time and the feasibility of the proposed method.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.2420-2426
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• 2015

This paper proposes an evolutionary optimization approach for optimal hopping of humanoid robots. In the proposed approach, the hopping trajectory is generated by a central pattern generator (CPG). The CPG is one of the biologically inspired approaches, and it generates rhythmic signals by using neural oscillators. During the hopping motion, the disturbance caused by the ground reaction forces is compensated for by utilizing the sensory feedback in the CPG. Posture control is essential for a stable hopping motion. A posture controller is utilized to maintain the balance of the humanoid robot while hopping. In addition, a compliance controller using a virtual spring-damper model is applied for stable landing. For optimal hopping, the optimization of the hopping motion is formulated as a minimization problem with equality constraints. To solve this problem, two-phase evolutionary programming is employed. The proposed approach is verified through computer simulations using a simulated model of the small-sized humanoid robot platform DARwIn-OP.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.14 no.10
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• pp.1038-1046
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• 2008

This paper presents a framework to generate human-like movements of a humanoid in real time using the movement primitive database of a human. The framework consists of two processes: 1) the offline motion imitation learning based on an Evolutionary Algorithm and 2) the online motion generation of a humanoid using the database updated bγ the motion imitation teaming. For the offline process, the initial database contains the kinetic characteristics of a human, since it is full of human's captured motions. The database then develops through the proposed framework of motion teaming based on an Evolutionary Algorithm, having the kinetic characteristics of a humanoid in aspect of minimal torque or joint jerk. The humanoid generates human-like movements far a given purpose in real time by linearly interpolating the primitive motions in the developed database. The movement of catching a ball was examined in simulation.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.23 no.7 s.184
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• pp.67-75
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• 2006

One of challenging topics for humanoid hands is to modulate a human-like motion of humanoid fingers handling an object. To this end, recognizing the motion behavior of human fingers is very important aspect. Based on this concept, this paper identifies the .joint trajectories of human fingers for an operation of hand opening and closing, and specifies an empirical model that coordinates an inter-articular relationship of human fingers doing the given motion. It is expected that the inter-articular model presented in this paper is applicable for humanoid fingers to mimic the natural motion of human fingers.

• International Journal of Control, Automation, and Systems
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.234-242
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• 2008

The purpose of this paper is to verify the practical effectiveness of an interphalangeal coordination-based joint motion planning method for humanoid finger operations. For the purpose, several experiments have been performed and comparative experimental results are shown. Through the experimental works, it is confirmed that according to the employed joint motion planning method, the joint configurations for a finger's trajectory can be planned stably or not, and consequently the actual joint torque command for controlling the finger can be made moderately or not. Finally, this paper analyzes that the interphalangeal coordination-based joint motion planning method is practically useful for implementing a stable finger manipulation. It is remarkably noted that the torque pattern by the method is well-balanced. Therefore, it is expected that the control performance of humanoid or prosthetic fingers can be enhanced by the method.