Development of a biped walking robot adapting to a horizontally uneven surface

In this paper, as the first stage of the biped walking adapting to an uneven surface using an anthropomorphic biped walking robot, the authors introduce a biped walking control method for adapting to a surface that is called a Horizontally Composed (HC) plane whose steps' height is unknown, and an special foot mechanism which is capable of shock absorbing using viscous elastomer for a HC-plane whose steps' height is unknown. The authors developed an anthropomorphic biped walking robot with the foot mechanism and performed walking experiments with the robot using the control method. As a result, adaptive dynamic biped walking over a step of unknown height was realized. The maximum walking speed was 0.96 sec per step with a 0.3 m step length, and the greatest step height was 12 mm. The authors believe that the adaptability is integral to an anthropomorphic robot that will support human living in the near future. The authors call the robot Humanoid. Study on the Humanoid is being done as the Project: Humanoid at HUREL (HUmanoid REsearch Laboratory), Advanced Research Center for Science and Engineering, Waseda University.