Whole-body Stabilization of the REEM-C Humanoid on Actuated Balance Boards in Sagittal and Frontal Directions

• Published in: 2023 IEEE-RAS 22nd International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids) pp. 1 - 8
• Main Authors: Rajendran, Vidyasagar, Chavez, Francisco Javier Andrade, Mombaur, Katja
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 12-12-2023
• Subjects: Admittance; Force; Hardware; Humanoid robots; Regulation; Transportation
• ISSN: 2164-0580
• DOI: 10.1109/Humanoids57100.2023.10375223

This paper explores stabilizer design for humanoid balancing on actuated balance boards. We qualitatively study how humans balance on balance boards to motivate our humanoid controller design. The developed approach combines various strategies from the literature including ankle admittance, CoM admittance, base pitch admittance, foot force difference admittance, contact wrench distribution and angular momentum regulation in a new integration to achieve stabilization on an actuated balance board. We explore the frontal and sagittal plane balance board problems along with pushes at the upper body and show that our approach works in simulation and on real hardware. This brings us one step closer to balancing on unactuated balance boards, other dynamic environments such as moving platforms and transportation devices, skills that will make humanoids more versatile.