EAGER/Collaborative Research: Center-of-Mass Control for Expressive and Effective Movement in Bipedal Robots

这个早期概念探索性研究（EAGER）合作项目将应用对人类运动员和舞者研究的见解，使类人机器人的运动同样有效和富有表现力。目标是在不复制人类躯干的完整复杂性和清晰度的情况下创造这种运动的能力。具体来说，该项目将实现一种新的机制来移动重物，该机制将使用新型的类似肌肉的驱动器独立于肢体运动来移动机器人的质心，并基于为舞蹈、体育和物理治疗开发的运动分析的正式系统来评估结果。除了提高机器人在完成运动（即步行步态）方面的效率外，这些能力还将为机器人和人类之间的通信提供新的渠道，即调节步行步态的风格。人类会通过观察动作无意识地推断态度和意图。例如，如果一个机器人同事的动作向它的人类伙伴传达了信任和能力，那么它就会更有效；如果一个机器人的第一反应者在紧急情况下的动作传达了信心和领导力，那么它就会更有效。这个项目将艺术和技术的相互作用融入到推广活动中，比如用舞蹈动作来理解机器人运动的基本原理。本项目采用了一种新颖的方法来生成人形机器人的动态行走，通过利用一种新颖的、核心位置的滚动球盘驱动机制的动力学，该机制源于对具身运动理论的探索。执行器的阻抗实时变化，调制机器人动力学以产生不同性质的激励。该项目的重点是控制机器人步态的表达特征，并与人类的运动进行明确的比较。该项目的目标是探索质心控制在人类行走中的作用，并通过建模、仿真和初始原型来证明双足机器人行走方法的可行性。这项工作将通过一组根据Bartenieff Fundamentals（一种正式的运动分析系统）设计的运动原语来建模和验证球盘驱动器。该研究团队汇集了运动科学、动态行走和类肌肉驱动方面的专家。除了提高机器人的性能外，这项工作还有可能增加机器人与人类通信的带宽。表达性动作可以传达许多不同的情感语境，包括紧急、冷静、热情、自信等等。将这些环境设计成机器人运动的能力在面向人类的场景中有许多潜在的应用。

This EArly-concept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER) collaborative project will apply insights from the study of human athletes and dancers to enable similarly effective and expressive movement in humanoid robots. The objective is to create the capability for such movement without duplicating the full complexity and articulation of the human torso. Specifically, the project will implement a novel mechanism for shifting a heavy mass that shifts the robot center of mass independently of limb movements using novel muscle-like actuators, and evaluate the results based on a formal system of movement analysis developed for dance, athletics, and physical therapy. In addition to improving the robot's effectiveness at accomplishing locomotion, i.e., a walking gait, these capabilities will provide new channels for communication between robots and humans, i.e., modulating the style of the walking gait. Humans make unconscious inferences about attitude and intent from observing movement. For example, a robot co-worker will be more effective if its movements communicate trustworthiness and competence to its human partners, and a robot first-responder will be more effective if its movements communicate confidence and leadership during an emergency situation. This project incorporates the interplay of art and technology into outreach activities, such as using dance movements to understand fundamentals of robot locomotion. This project takes a novel approach to generating dynamic walking in a humanoid robot, by exploiting the dynamics of a novel, core-located rolling ball-and-tray actuation mechanism arising from exploration of embodied movement theory. The impedance of the actuator is varied in real time, modulating the robot dynamics to produce qualitatively different excitations. The focus of the project is on controlling the expressive character of robot gait, with explicit comparison to human movement. The goals of the project are to explore the role of center-of-mass control in human walking and to demonstrate the feasibility of the approach for bipedal robotic walking through modeling, simulation, and an initial prototype. The work will model and validate the ball-and-tray actuator via a set of motion primitives designed in accordance with Bartenieff Fundamentals, a formal system of movement analysis. The research team brings together experts in movement science, dynamic walking, and muscle-like actuation. In addition to improving robot performance, this work has the potential to increase the bandwidth of robot-human communications. Expressive movement can convey many different emotional contexts, including urgency, calm, enthusiasm, confidence, et cetera. The ability to engineer these contexts into robot movement has many potential applications in human facing scenarios.