Design and control of the humanoid robot SURALP

SURALP is a 29 degrees-of-freedom full-body walking humanoid robot designed and constructed at Sabanci University - Turkey. The human-sized robot is actuated by DC motors, belt and pulley systems and Harmonic Drive reduction gears. The sensory equipment consists of joint encoders, force/torque sensors, inertial measurement systems and cameras. The control hardware is based on a dSpace digital signal processor. This paper reviews the design of this robot and presents experimental walking results. A posture zeroing procedure is followed after manual zeroing of the robot joints. Controllers for landing impact reduction, early landing trajectory modification, foot-ground orientation compliance, body inclination and Zero Moment Point (ZMP) regulation, and independent joint position controllers are used in zeroing and walking. A smooth walking trajectory is employed. Experimental results indicate that the reference generation and control algorithms are successful in achieving a stable and continuous walk.