Developing a Walking Gait

[kambozza]

Hello Gurus,

I recently bought my first Bioloid Comprehensive Kit, and I am trying to get the humanoid to walk.

The built in walking gait is not so stable, after a few steps the robot would fall on its back.

I tried building my own walking gait, however apparently its a really difficult task.

I saw UncleBob's tutorial, but it was for a modified bioloid and doesnt work with the stock version.

Can anyone give me any guidance on how to build my own walking gait?

Thanks

K.

[serithseraki]

Since the Bioloid has Catch and play, I would pose it so that one leg is forward and one leg back with the feet level with the ground and its weight evenly distributed. If you can have the robot stand and hold this position without it being under power, then you know it will be stable. Then once you have that pose, use that pose and modify it step by step until you have all the poses from a forward step to the standing neutral pose, then just reverse it. This is my method for making walking gaits. If that doesn't work for you, you can use the catch and play feature to edit the existing poses to make them more stable.

[limor]

There's a great software that can ease the way of making a humanoid walk and dance http://choreonoid.org/ja/ but bioloid needs to be ported to it.
btw: the Japanese version of the page and software is more up to date
If you have time to port the bioloid model and inertia data to this software then it will make things easier

otherwise you need to do trial and error for days using the motion editor. In the end you will get pretty good at it. we made the GP dance the sexy-and-i-know-it routine just by brute force trial and error.

[kambozza]

Since the Bioloid has Catch and play, I would pose it so that one leg is forward and one leg back with the feet level with the ground and its weight evenly distributed.

The problem with this is that the robot doesn't raise its foot of the ground, instead it tried to "slide", which I discovered isn't possible since the ground's resistance/friction is too high it causes the robot to turn!

The moment you get into this route, you need to spend a lot of time manually configuring the servo positions (by editing each servo's position value) till you get what you want, which I couldn't pull off... I'm sure a combo of both approaches is possible but I wish there was some video or material to explain it

otherwise you need to do trial and error for days using the motion editor. In the end you will get pretty good at it. we made the GP dance the sexy-and-i-know-it routine just by brute force trial and error.

How many days? The Bioloid Comprehensive is not as flexible or advanced as the GP. The CM5 looks to be a heavy and bulky POS that makes it impossible for the robot to balance (on one leg for example such as the GP can)

Thanks gents[/quote]

[Fritzoid]

limor wrote

If you have time to port the bioloid model and inertia data to this software then it will make things easier

It turns out that the Choreonoid software uses the same model definitions as OpenHRP. Not too surprising since both systems were created at AIST (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology) in Japan. What this means is that the Boiloid Premium model that I created as part of my BioSim project can be loaded into Choreonoid as is!

You can get a copy of the model by downloading BioSim.zip from my files area here at RoboSavvy. http://robosavvy.com/Builders/Fritzoid/BioSim.zip. Use Humanoid_A.wrl from the model subdirectory.

[Fritzoid]

Better yet, here's the same model along with the necessary YAML definitions needed to use Choreonoid. I've also included a Choreonoid project and motion file that simulates the walking gait provided with RoboPlus.

http://robosavvy.com/Builders/Fritzoid/Choreonoid.zip

[Fritzoid]

And if that's not enough... I've updated my MotionEdit program so that it can import Choreonoid position files. Now you can create a walking gait in Choreonoid and then convert it into a RoboPlus motion (.mtn) file! I can provide step-by-step directions if anybody it interested. You can find all the code for the Netbeans project in http://robosavvy.com/Builders/Fritzoid/MotionEdit.zip

[wiweet]

I'd really love to have those step by step direction Fritzoid, how can I get those?

[Fritzoid]

Sorry for the delay in my response wiweet.

I've been unable to upload the updated archive due to size limitations, so I had to break the thing into two pieces.

To get the whole package you will now need to download http://robosavvy.com/Builders/Fritzoid/MotionEdit_dist.zip along with http://robosavvy.com/Builders/Fritzoid/MotionEdit.zip.

MotionEdit_dist.zip contains the distribution sub-directory only, with the necessary jar files to run the program. This other archive contains the source code and project files. Added to the source is a file called Choreonoid2RoboPlus.rtf which is the step-by-step directions I promised you.

[wiweet]

Thank you very much Fritzoid, I'll try it right away. Hopefully I could post the result I have soon.

[UncleBob]

Robot Walking is an art. The principle is mentioned in my video. Eventhough the model is different the principle is the same.

Having said that each robot is slightly different this is where the art comes in. I normally have to manually check each frame slowly until they become smooth. One has to check how the robot is balanced during walking and then adjust it accordingly. It can be a pain when trying to improve it actually makes the whole gait unusable and need to start from the beginning.

When some servos aren't as quick as others then one would have to find ways to overcome it.

IK is cool but I don't believe it is the easiest way to make a biped robot walk.