Whole-Body Trajectory Optimization for Humanoid Falling

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Date
2012-06Author
Wang, Jiuguang
Whitman, Eric C.
Stilman, Mike
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Show full item recordAbstract
We present an optimization-based control strategy
for generating whole-body trajectories for humanoid robots
in order to minimize damage due to falling. In this work,
the falling problem is formulated using optimal control where
we seek to minimize the impulse on impact with the ground,
subject to the full-body dynamics and constraints of the robot
in joint space. We extend previous work in this domain
by numerically approximating the resulting optimal control,
generating open-loop trajectories by solving an equivalent
nonlinear programming problem. Compared to previous results
in falling optimization, the proposed framework is extendable
to more complex dynamic models and generate trajectories
that are guaranteed to be physically feasible. These results
are implemented in simulation using models of dynamically
balancing humanoid robots in several experimental scenarios.