Modeling and Control of Humanoid Robots in Dynamic Environments: iCub Balancing on a Seesaw
This addresses the challenge of stable robot behavior in interactive scenarios for robotics applications, but it is incremental as it builds on existing control methods.
The paper tackles the problem of stabilizing humanoid robots in dynamic environments by developing a modeling and control framework, validated through simulation with the iCub robot balancing on a seesaw.
Forthcoming applications concerning humanoid robots may involve physical interaction between the robot and a dynamic environment. In such scenario, classical balancing and walking controllers that neglect the environment dynamics may not be sufficient for achieving a stable robot behavior. This paper presents a modeling and control framework for balancing humanoid robots in contact with a dynamic environment. We first model the robot and environment dynamics, together with the contact constraints. Then, a control strategy for stabilizing the full system is proposed. Theoretical results are verified in simulation with robot iCub balancing on a seesaw.