Realization Of Obstacle Avoidance By Biped Walking Robot Equipped With Vision System

A couple of eyes composed of two CCD cameras is installed on the biped walking robot WL-IZRII-V (Waseda Leg-12 Refined IT with Vision). It is possible for a biped walking robot to "avoid" an obstacle by stepping over it instead of detouring around it, if it is low enough for it to do so. In this paper, this type of obstacle avoidance is described with experimental results. The stepping-over experiments have been successful in almost all processes. The robot succeeds in walking on a flat floor at given velocity when it finds an obstacle (for example, a long 3Ox30Lmml cross section square timber can be used) in its way, the robot measures accurately its position and height while walking and then steps over it. Furthermore, not only the bending waist pattern for short-range-measurement but also the approach walking and cr6ss walking patterns for the execution of "stepping-over" are automatically designed by the robot. Thus, the WL-1ZRII-V autonomously has realized biped walking for avoiding an obstacle.