A Robotic Implementation of a Bio-Inspired Head Motion Stabilization Model on a Humanoid Platform

The results of the neuroscientific research show that humans tend to stabilize the head orientation during locomotion. In this paper we describe the implementation of inverse kinematics based head stabilization controller on the humanoid platform. The controller uses the IMU feedback and controls neck joints in order to align the head orientation with the global orientation reference. Thanks to the method, we can decouple the orientational motion of the head from the rest of the body. This way stabilized head becomes better platform for proprioceptive sensory apparatus, such as cameras or IMU. In the paper we present three experiments which prove that the method has good performance in damping both, high and low frequency motion of the head. We also prove that the proposed controller improves the stability of the tracked goal point on the image of in-built camera.