Tactile sensing by the sole of the foot: part i: apparatus and initial experiments toward obtaining dynamic pressure maps useful for stabilizing standing, walking, and running of humanoid robots

This paper introduces prototype experimental apparatus to investigate stability in standing, walking and running of humanoid robots using pressure sensing at the foot contact. The preliminary experiments show that the system can provide very good spatial or temporal resolution and these can be traded off each other given the problem at hand, such as the sparsely sampled whole foot during static balancing or the densely sampled impact point of the foot during walking or running. The prototype apparatus, experimental result, and dynamic models of the system will give insight into the nature of balance control