Thermal control of electrical motors for high-power humanoid robots

High physical ability of humanoid robots is desired for application to nursing care. Light and powerful actuators are required to realize the high-power performance. In this paper, we propose a method to bring out maximum performance of electric motors aggressively. The technique of motor core temperature estimation and control improves the motor power performance dramatically but safely without motor burnout. We have developed high power motor driver modules for the proposed method and equipped them into our humanoid robot and prototype jumping robot. High-power performance experiments with the robots demonstrate our method.