A novel design of flexible foot system for humanoid robot

Abstract

The Large-scale uneven ground is mostly unsmooth and in the irregular state in which the irregularity is usually unknown (such as footway, carriageway, unexplored desert, mountainous area, surface of the Mars). In order to walk steadily and rapidly on such ground, a chief problem to overcome is that the humanoid robot's foot is not matching with the unknown model of the ground. Therefore, the humanoid robot's foot should have the flexibility mimic the human's foot, and can adapt to and steadily interacted with any unsmooth ground. Also interferences and disjoints between soles and irregular unsmooth ground should be avoided. Aiming at solving the key problem for humanoid robot to steadily and rapidly walk on the large-scale and three- dimension uneven ground, we've set up a new multidegree- of-freedom flexible foot mechanism which can make the humanoid robot's walking gesture and gait automatically adapt to the terrain, and then carry out the research of the globally stable control of the gait. The flexibility can obviously improve the humanoid robot's walking stability and speediness on the large-scale uneven ground.