Toward a Human(oid) Motion Planner

Abstract

This paper outlines our research activities on motion planning and optimization for humanoid and their applications for human motion analysis and understanding. Starting research that applies geometric and kinematic motion planning technique to humanoid robots, we next explored their motion optimization. Although humanoid robots have an anthropomorphic shape and structure, we have first concentrated on dealing with them as robots with many degrees of freedom (DOFs). Studying humanoid robots started drawing more and more interest in human motions: what are their principles when a human make motions? We investigated optimization of walking paths and whole-body motions involving multiple contacts by using criteria and constraints taking into account some features of human motions. We recently focus on complementary investigation on digital human model and humanoid robotics in order to develop tools for product design by reproducing human behaviors, as well as humanoid robots that can work naturally in human environments.