From compliant balancing to dynamic walking on humanoid robot: Integration of CNS and CPG

We present our ongoing effort to achieve compliant balancing to dynamic walking on our torque-controlled, human-sized, biped humanoid robot. Inspired by human musculoskeletal systems, our approach integrates full-body task-space force controllers with joint-space pattern generators on the commanded joint torque output to facilitate robust control performance, as well as the efficient online learning. With this approach various compliant and stable motions have been created in a constructive manner. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach by two folds of experiments: 1) Compliant double / single-support balancing and quasi-static walking on uneven terrain, which do not require any joint patters, 2) Fast and stable squat and dynamic walking by introducing joint-space pattern generators.