Planning footsteps in obstacle cluttered environments

Humanoid robots posses the unique ability to cross obstacles by stepping over or upon them. However, conventional 2D methods for robot navigation fail to exploit it and thus design trajectories only by circumventing obstacles. Recently, global algorithms have been presented that take into account this feature of humanoids. However, due to high computational complexity, most of them are very time consuming. In this paper, we illustrate our novel approach to footstep planning in obstacle cluttered environments that employs a human-like strategy to terrain traversal and report on progress towards its implementation on humanoid robot hardware. Unlike existing hardware executions of footstep planning approaches, we consider obstacles of non-zero height while planning. Specific strategies are adopted to cater for these, both in dodging obstacles by circumvention as well as in design of stepping over trajectories. Experimental results of its implementaion on HRP-2 humanoid robot are also presented.