Whole body teleoperation of a humanoid robot - a method of integrating operator´s intention and robot´s autonomy

This paper proposes a new method for the teleoperation of humanoid robots which integrates human operator´s intention with robot´s autonomy. Getting hints from human conscious and subconscious motion generations, we propose a method which generates whole body motions of a humanoid robot satisfying operator´s desired movement of specific points on which the operator focuses as well as the robot´s balance. The proposed method is based on a whole body momentum control. We also introduce a function of automatic adjustments of the position of the center of mass and torso orientation in order to expand the reachable area of a humanoid robot. The effectiveness of the method is confirmed by using humanoid robot simulator OpenHRP with physical parameters of real humanoid robot HRP-1S.