Prototyping a biped robot using an educational robotics kit

This paper reports an experience of use of a robotics educational kit to prototype a biped robot, the robot was used to validate a new walking trajectory generation approach. The use of robotic kits is an alternative for low-cost prototyping and testing robotic solutions. Even if these robots did not meet the requirements of an industrial design, they can offer a first validation alternative. In this work, the Bioloid robotic kit is used to implement and evaluate a new algorithm for biped gait generation called IK-PSO. The algorithm used a forward kinematics model and a target position of the biped center of mass, COM, to generate an inverse kinematics solution of the joints motions. The remaining of the control process is a classical one. The pre-computed position of the Centre of mass, COM, allowed the robot to walk with a high degree of confidence that its stability is guaranteed. The educational robotics kit used allowed a fast prototyping and a practical test of the proposed algorithm.