CHILD (Controller for Humanoid Imitation and Live Demonstration): a Whole-Body Humanoid Teleoperation System

TL;DR

This paper introduces CHILD, a compact, reconfigurable teleoperation system enabling whole-body joint-level control of humanoid robots, validated through loco-manipulation demonstrations and open-sourced for accessibility.

Contribution

The paper presents CHILD, a novel, portable teleoperation system supporting full-body joint control of humanoid robots with adaptive force feedback, enhancing task diversity and operator safety.

Findings

Successful loco-manipulation demonstrations on humanoid robots.

System supports full-body control with adaptive force feedback.

Open-source hardware design promotes accessibility.

Abstract

Recent advances in teleoperation have demonstrated robots performing complex manipulation tasks. However, existing works rarely support whole-body joint-level teleoperation for humanoid robots, limiting the diversity of tasks that can be accomplished. This work presents Controller for Humanoid Imitation and Live Demonstration (CHILD), a compact reconfigurable teleoperation system that enables joint level control over humanoid robots. CHILD fits within a standard baby carrier, allowing the operator control over all four limbs, and supports both direct joint mapping for full-body control and loco-manipulation. Adaptive force feedback is incorporated to enhance operator experience and prevent unsafe joint movements. We validate the capabilities of this system by conducting loco-manipulation and full-body control demonstrations on a humanoid robot and multiple dual-arm systems. Lastly, we open-source the design of the hardware promoting accessibility and reproducibility. Additional details and open-source information are available at our project website: https://uiuckimlab.github.io/CHILD-pages.