Planning of kicking motion with via-point representation for humanoid robots

This paper describes planning of a whole body motion, such as kicking motion, for humanoid robots. Motion planning which is generally accompanied by various constraints is a key problem to achieve the task. In these constraints, the conditions for achieving the task are the most important component in the motion planning. In this research, we propose a method for motion planning with via-point representation to deal with various conditions for achieving the task. The via-point representation plays a crucial role in the reappearance of human movements. Our method deals with various constraints including the achievements for the task by conditions of the via-point parameterization in the optimization process. We applied this method to generate the kicking motion of a humanoid robot HOAP-3, and confirmed that the robot kicked a ball to roll on the ground and to fly in the air.