Control and hardware design for a bipedal robot via planar modeling with empirical perception studies leveraging embodied movement analysis

Humans can walk across a range of surfaces without falling and can also communicate internal state to other humans through variable gait styles. That is why, developing bipedal robots is of interest for applications in human-facing settings. For the purpose of designing an expressive bipedal robot, this dissertation focuses on taking inspiration from the experiential understanding about human walking from the Basic Six in Bartenieff Fundamentals. To generate a range of stylistic walking behaviors, simplified planar biped models are studied under model-based trajectory optimization with variable constraints. From these walking behaviors, a set of gaits is identified and labeled, using embodied movement analysis, with stylistic verbs related to human walking, e.g., ``lope'' and ``saunter''. These labels are then validated by conducting user studies in Amazon Mechanical Turk and demonstrate that the gaits generated using our method are visually distinguishable and correlate with the human activity. These gaits are also investigated for the affect they can induce on the humans in the presence of visual stimuli in the form of background images. To implement the variable gait styles in real world, a hardware mechanism has also been developed that can replicate the notion of pelvic shift from the Basic Six. Thus, this dissertation lays groundwork for designing bipedal walking robots that can convey social cues with their movements and integrate harmoniously around humans.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Mechanical Engineering

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2020

Author dc:creator

• Huzaifa, Muhammad Umer

Contributors dc:contributor

• LaViers, Amy
• Hsiao-Wecksler, Elizabeth
• Park, Hae-Won
• Kirlik, Alex

• Robotics, Control, Bipedal Walking, Expressive Robots, Walking Robots

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2019 Muhammad Umer Huzaifa

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/106157

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/106157