Humanoid Walking -> Easier with AI?

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Wednesday, August 5th, 2009

I have been trying for AGES now to make my humanoid walk!

The main difficulties are:
- a really good walking motion would have many frames in it
- trying to program/tweak with a robot wriggling around is tricky
- the balance changes depending on the time, wires, center of mass… so many things!

Maybe it is easier for the robot to teach itself how to walk!

I’m thinking in order to do that I would need:
- Encoders* on each DOF (* I may not need encoders if these servos do provide feedback based on location, have to check)
- AI algorithm(s)
- Data logging
- Long battery life
- Patience

Creating the AI algorithms would be fun, but it would just take a lot of trial an error. In this scenario, the robot would “find” many loopholes in the algorithm. Not only would the goal have to be precisely defined, but so would the constraints.

However, at the same time I’m wondering if there is something that I am missing when trying to create the walking motion. Check out how simple it looks on the Nao:

I’m going to try again tomorrow, but use the knee servos more. Maybe the trick is to do it like this:
Move center of mass (right/left)
Lift knee (left/right)
Move leg SLIGHTLY forward (left/right)
Lower knee (left/right)
Move center of mass (left/right)
and repeat.

I hope that one will work.

In other news, I finished another iPhone app, and it is currently in the review process. I won’t spoil too much, but it makes a *ding dong* noise.

In more other news, my summer research was completed a few weeks ago and I am currently finishing the final report. I will post more details on this when it is all complete.

In even more other news, I have been playing with the gyro sensor, and I am planning to make some sort of motion for MANOI with it. However, I have to make MANOI walk first

Posted in: MANOI, Programming, Projects, Robot.
Tags: AI, humanoid, humanoid walking, MANOI, walking

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