Balance control and locomotion planning for humanoid robots using nonlinear centroidal models

Balance control approaches for humanoid robots have traditionally relied on low-dimensional models for locomotion planning and reactive balance control. Results for the low-dimensional model are mapped to the full robot, and used as inputs to a whole-body controller. In particular, the linear inverted pendulum (LIP) has long been the de facto standard low-dimensional model used in balance control. The LIP has its limitations, however. For example, it requires that the robot's center of mass move on a plane and that the robot's contact environment be planar. This thesis presents control and planning approaches using nonlinear low-dimensional models, aimed at mitigating some of the limitations of the LIP. Specically, the contributions are: 1) a closed-form controller and region of attraction analysis for a nonlinear variable-height inverted pendulum model, 2) a trajectory optimization approach for humanoid robot locomotion over moderately complex terrain based on mixed-integer nonlinear programming with a low-dimensional model, and 3) a quadratic-programming based controller that uses the the results from these low-dimensional models to control a simulation model of the Atlas humanoid robot.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctoral

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2020

Author dc:creator

• Koolen, Frans Anton.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Russ Tedrake.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses may be protected by copyright. Please reuse MIT thesis content according to the MIT Libraries Permissions Policy, which is available through the URL provided.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/128291

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/128291