Locomotion control system design for the LOCH humanoid robot

Design of the locomotion control system for the LOCH robot is presented in this paper. Gait planning and control algorithm for uneven terrain is also considered. The LOCH robot is an adult-sized biped humanoid robot. It adopts the distributed control structure based on CAN bus, and uses a Linux operating system as the software platform. The architecture of both the hardware and software system is introduced. The emphasis is then put onto the biped planning and control. An on-line planner is designed on the basis of the inverted arm model. It generates walking gaits adaptively according to user inputs and floor flatness changes. In handling uneven floor, an imaginary foot approach is proposed to convert the problem into flat floor planning. Stability control and compliant landing control are also investigated. Both experiments and simulations are performed to show the effectiveness of the proposed design.