Hand-centered whole-body motion control for a humanoid robot

In this paper we present "hand-centered" motion generation and control of whole-body motion for a humanoid robot, which enable the robot to carry out reaching and walking simultaneously. Hand-centered whole-body motion control is defined as a real-time control scheme in which the hand motion (input) leads to the whole-body motion (output). The hand trajectory is described in the absolute coordinate system (world frame) and the torso trajectory follows the hand trajectory. This method enables operation of the hand of a walking humanoid robot, and autonomous generation and control of the whole-body motion based on the hand velocity vector using sensor feedback. We have implemented the method as a hand-centered whole-body motion control system on the existing humanoid robot system "H7". Some experimental results including both reaching and walking motions are shown to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.