Wireless Kinect-NAO Framework Based on Takagi-Sugeno Fuzzy Inference System

Abstract

Abstract In the context of learning new skills by imitation for children with special educational needs, we propose Wireless Kinect-NAO Framework (WKNF) for robot teleoperation in real time based on Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) Fuzzy Inference System. The new solutions here are related to complex whole-body motion retargeting, standing body stabilization, view invariance and smoothness of robot motions. The raw depth Kinect data are fuzzified and processed by median filter. The joint angles estimation for motion mapping of Human to NAO movements is based on fuzzy logic and featured angles rather than direct angles are calculated by Inverse Kinematics due to differences in the human and robot kinematics. During the joint angles calculation nonlinearities are observed as a result of ambiguity of Kinect 3D joint coordinates in different offsets. NAO kinematic limitations and nonlinearities in workspace are decomposed and linearly approximated by T-S fuzzy rules of zero and first order that have local support in 2D projections. To prevent the robot to fall down, the center of mass is considered in order NAO to stay within a support and safe polygon. The feasibility of the proposed framework has been proven by real experiments.