Control and hardware design for a bipedal robot via planar modeling with empirical perception studies leveraging embodied movement analysis

Huzaifa, Muhammad Umer

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/106157 Copy

Description

Title

Control and hardware design for a bipedal robot via planar modeling with empirical perception studies leveraging embodied movement analysis

Author(s)

Huzaifa, Muhammad Umer

Issue Date

2019-10-08

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

LaViers, Amy

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

LaViers, Amy

Committee Member(s)

• Hsiao-Wecksler, Elizabeth
• Park, Hae-Won
• Kirlik, Alex

Department of Study

Mechanical Sci & Engineering

Discipline

Mechanical Engineering

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

Robotics, Control, Bipedal Walking, Expressive Robots, Walking Robots

Abstract

Humans can walk across a range of surfaces without falling and can also communicate internal state to other humans through variable gait styles. That is why, developing bipedal robots is of interest for applications in human-facing settings. For the purpose of designing an expressive bipedal robot, this dissertation focuses on taking inspiration from the experiential understanding about human walking from the Basic Six in Bartenieff Fundamentals. To generate a range of stylistic walking behaviors, simplified planar biped models are studied under model-based trajectory optimization with variable constraints. From these walking behaviors, a set of gaits is identified and labeled, using embodied movement analysis, with stylistic verbs related to human walking, e.g., ``lope'' and ``saunter''. These labels are then validated by conducting user studies in Amazon Mechanical Turk and demonstrate that the gaits generated using our method are visually distinguishable and correlate with the human activity. These gaits are also investigated for the affect they can induce on the humans in the presence of visual stimuli in the form of background images. To implement the variable gait styles in real world, a hardware mechanism has also been developed that can replicate the notion of pelvic shift from the Basic Six. Thus, this dissertation lays groundwork for designing bipedal walking robots that can convey social cues with their movements and integrate harmoniously around humans.

Graduation Semester

2019-12

Type of Resource

text

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/106157

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2019 Muhammad Umer Huzaifa

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