Learning dynamic arm motions for postural recovery

The biomechanics community has recently made progress toward understanding the role of rapid arm movements in human stability recovery. However, comparatively little work has been done exploring this type of control in humanoid robots. We provide a summary of recent insights into the functional contributions of arm recovery motions in humans and experimentally demonstrate advantages of this behavior on a dynamically stable mobile manipulator. Using Bayesian optimization, the robot efficiently discovers policies that reduce total energy expenditure and recovery footprint, and increase ability to stabilize after large impacts.