Humanoids & walking robots
(LaTeX | PDF | HTML | Figures )
Humanoid and walking robots are very much like industrial serial robot arms, with a couple of differences:
- The dynamics of the system are much more important, for the simple fact that humanoid and walking robots don't have their feet rigidly fixed to the ground.
- The kinematic chain of humanoid and walking robots has a tree structure, which makes things (only) a little bit more complex.
This Chapter is, in many ways, a rather simple extension to the discussion on serial robots, because humanoids and walking robots have a tree-like topological structure. The kinematics and dynamics ofsuch structures require only few extensions to the theory of linear kinematic chains. Of course, there are a couple of very specific topics:
- The concept of Zero Moment Point is very important to walking, and does not occur in serial robots.
- The concept of gaits is also something that is much more relevant for walking that for serial robots.