Vision-guided humanoid footstep planning for dynamic environments

• Published in: 5th IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, 2005 pp. 13 - 18
• Main Authors: Michel, P., Chestnutt, J., Kuffner, J., Kanade, T.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 2005
• Subjects: Computer vision; Feedback; Humanoid robots; Humans; Legged locomotion; Navigation; Parallel robots; Robot kinematics; Robot sensing systems; Robot vision systems
• ISBN: 0780393201; 9780780393202
• ISSN: 2164-0572
• DOI: 10.1109/ICHR.2005.1573538

Despite the stable walking capabilities of modern biped humanoid robots, their ability to autonomously and safely navigate obstacle-filled, unpredictable environments has so far been limited. We present an approach to autonomous humanoid walking that combines vision-based sensing with a footstep planner, allowing the robot to navigate toward a desired goal position while avoiding obstacles. An environment map including the robot, goal, and obstacle locations is built in real-time from vision. The footstep planner then computes an optimal sequence of footstep locations within a time-limited planning horizon. Footstep plans are reused and only partially recomputed as the environment changes during the walking sequence. In our experiments, combining real-time vision with plan reuse has allowed a Honda ASIMO humanoid robot to autonomously traverse dynamic environments containing unpredictably moving obstacles