Control and Evaluation of a Humanoid Robot with Rolling Contact Knees

TL;DR

This paper presents the design and control of the humanoid robot DRACO 3, focusing on its rolling contact knees, and demonstrates a whole body controller integrated into an open-source framework through experimental validation.

Contribution

Introduction of a novel whole body controller supporting rolling contact joints, integrated into an open-source planning and control framework for humanoid robots.

Findings

Successful experimental validation on DRACO 3 with postural tasks

Analysis of proximal actuation impact compared to other humanoids

Demonstration of controller's integration and performance

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce the humanoid robot DRACO 3 by providing a high-level description of its design and control. This robot features proximal actuation and mechanical artifacts to provide a high range of hip, knee and ankle motion. Its versatile design brings interesting problems as it requires a more elaborate control system to perform its motions. For this reason, we introduce a whole body controller (WBC) with support for rolling contact joints and show how it can be easily integrated into our previously presented open-source Planning and Control (PnC) framework. We then validate our controller experimentally on DRACO 3 by showing preliminary results carrying out two postural tasks. Lastly, we analyze the impact of the proximal actuation design and show where it stands in comparison to other adult-size humanoids.