Sensor filtering for balancing of humanoid robots in highly dynamic environments

This paper is part of our on-going research in balancing of humanoid robots in highly dynamic environments. We focus on balancing of a humanoid robot on a Bongo board. One of the problems with balancing in highly dynamic environments such as the Bongo board is the fact that any control algorithm needs to overcome the inherent latency and jitter in the sensors as well as in the actuators of the robot, since it has very little time to react to disturbances. The sensor filter method described in this paper allows the robot Jimmy (a DARwIn-OP robot) to balance for several seconds on a Bongo board. A video of the robot Jimmy balancing on the Bongo board can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ia2ZYqqF-lw.