Skill-oriented humanoid robot developments for autonomous robot competitions

In this paper, a kid size humanoid robot, HuroEvolution, is presented. The HuroEvolution is developed for two autonomous robot competitions of RoboCup 2010 and FIRA 2010. In order to perform various competition functions, the robot structure, sensor modules, control systems and software programs are designed to meet the competition requirements of participated games. In addition to the brief introductions of the mechanical structure, sensor modules and control system, this paper focuses on the illustrations of autonomy for various skill-oriented functions. Our solutions are developed based on autonomous sensing and decision approaches. The autonomous sensing approach is realized in terms of typical sensor fusion techniques, which combine the information collected from a web camera and a 3-axis magneto-resistive sensor. The fused sensor information is further used for skill-oriented autonomous decision systems which are responsible of navigations and task executions. Currently, the HuroEvolution is capable of playing the games of soccer, weightlifting, obstacle run, sprint, marathon and basketball. Finally, the proposed skill-oriented functions were verified in the RoboCup 2010 and FIRA 2010 competitions.