Exploring humanoid robots locomotion capabilities in virtual disaster response scenarios

We study the feasibility of having various humanoid robots undertake some tasks from those challenged by the DARPA´s call on disaster operations. Hence, we focus on locomotion tasks that apparently require human-like motor skills to be achieved. We use virtual scenes under the fully-3D-modeled-environment assumption. The robot autonomously plans and executes the motion with a high-level goal specification, such as reaching a global position or a particular contact state. We assess the feasibility according not only to the robot kinematics, but also to whole-body dynamics, non-desired collision avoidance, friction limits, and actuation limits. The results -the controlled motions- are demonstrated in the accompanying video.