Biped navigation in rough environments using on-board sensing

We present an approach to navigating a biped robot safely and efficiently through a complicated environment of previously unknown obstacles and terrain using only on-board sensing and odometry. Sensing of the environment is performed by a pivoting laser scanner, which continues to update the terrain representation as the robot walks. Safe stepping motions are planned from this data to follow the user´s command, given in the form of an end goal, a rough path, or a joystick input. Results are demonstrated on a prototype robot in several environments.