Generalized direction changing fall control of humanoid robots among multiple objects

— Humanoid robots are expected to share human environments in the future and it is important to ensure safety of their operation. A serious threat to safety is the fall of a humanoid robot, which can seriously damage both the robot and objects in its surrounding. This paper proposes a strategy for planning and control of fall. The controller’s objective is to prevent the robot from hitting surrounding objects during a fall by modifying its default fall direction. We have earlier presented such a direction-changing fall controller in [1]. However, the controller was applicable only when the robot’s surrounding contained a single object. In this paper we introduce a generalized approach to humanoid falldirection control among multiple objects. This new framework algorithmically establishes a desired fall direction through assigned scores, considers a number of control options, and selects and executes the best strategy. The fall planner is also able to select “No Action” as the...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: ICRA
• Authors: Umashankar Nagarajan, Ambarish Goswami
• Keywords: Direction-changing Fall Controller, Humanoid Robot, ICRA 2010, Robot, Robotics