Design of a library of motion functions for a Humanoid robot for a football game

Abstract

Humanoid robots are enjoying increasing popularity as a research tool and education tool. The ultimate goal of the international RoboCup Initiative is to build a humanoid soccer team which beats a human World Cup Champion team in 2050. Despite impressive achievements of some teams, the overall performance of the soccer playing humanoids is still far from perfect. The robots sometimes show instability while walking, fail to kick the ball or defend against shots not taken. In this study we present a geometrical model for the walking legs of the Kondo KHR-1 humanoid robot. The model allows to establish the relationships between a set of function walking motion controls and that of the leg controlled angles. Furthermore, we use the German team SimRobot to program the soccer scene and for the analysis of Kondo walking motion. For this we developed a 3D model as part of the SimRobot controller. A set of synthesized walking motions were designed. The result is a library of motions which are: 1) Walking Forward 2) Walking Backwards 3) Step right/left 4) Turn right/left 5) Swat right/left 6) Kick right/left 7) Bow 8) Push-ups. The library is useful to facilitate soccer behavior programming for preparing the students to the RoboCup competition.