Human interface, automatic planning, and control of a humanoid robot

This paper presents an integrated robotic system consisting of human interfaces, motion- and grasp-planning algorithms, a controller, a graphical simulator, and a humanoid robot with over 60 joints. All of these subsystems are integrated in a coordinated fashion to enable the robot to perform a commanded task with as much autonomy as possible. The highest level of our system is the human interfaces, which enable a user to specify tasks conveniently and efficiently. At the mid-level, several planning algorithms generate motions of the robot body, arms, and hands automatically. At the lowest level, the motor controllers are equipped with both a position controller and a compliant motion controller to execute gross motions and contact motions, respectively. The main contributions of our work are the large-scale integration and the development of the motion planners for a humanoid robot. A hierarchical integration scheme that preserves the modularities of the human interfaces, the motion planners, and the controller has been the key for the successful integration. The set of motion planners is developed systematically so as to coordinate the motions of the body, arms, and hands to perform a large variety of tasks.