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Multi-physics modelling of a compliant humanoid robot

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Abstract

We present a multibody simulator being used for compliant humanoid robot modelling and report our reasoning for choosing the settings of the simulator’s key features. First, we provide a study on how the numerical integration speed and accuracy depend on the coordinate representation of the multibody system. This choice is particularly critical for mechanisms with long serial chains (e.g. legs and arms). Our second contribution is a full electromechanical model of the inner dynamics of the compliant actuators embedded in the COMAN robot, since joints’ compliance is needed for the robot safety and energy efficiency. Third, we discuss the different approaches for modelling contacts and selecting an appropriate contact library. The recommended solution is to couple our simulator with an open-source contact library offering both accurate and fast contact modelling. The simulator performances are assessed by two different tasks involving contacts: a bimanual manipulation task and a squatting tasks. The former shows reliability of the simulator. For the latter, we report a comparison between the robot behaviour as predicted by our simulation environment, and the real one.

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Notes

  1. One time-unit equals \(\sqrt{l/g}\) seconds, where \(g\) and \(l\) are in \(\mbox{m}/\mbox{s}^{2}\) and m, respectively.

  2. Analytical result was obtained by Maxima computer algebra system [20], with numerical precision of \(3.5\cdot 10^{-14}\).

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the European Community”s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under Grant 611832 (WALK-MAN), by the foundation “Wallonie-Brussel International” (post-doc scholarship awarded to AZ), and by the Belgian F.R.S.-FNRS (Crédit aux Chercheurs #6809010 awarded to RR, Aspirant #16744574 awarded to NVdN).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Leninskie Gory, 1, 119991, Moscow, Russia

    Alexandra A. Zobova

  2. Department of Advanced Robotics, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Via Morego, 30, 16163, Genova, Italy

    Houman Dallali & Nikolaos G. Tsagarakis

  3. Biorobotics Laboratory, Institute of Bioengineering, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), EPFL STI IBI BIOROB, Station 9, CH-1015, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Nicolas Van der Noot

  4. Center for Research in Mechatronics, Institute of Mechanics, Materials, and Civil Engineering, Université catholique de Louvain (UCL), Place du Levant 2, 1348, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

    Timothée Habra, Nicolas Van der Noot, Paul Fisette & Renaud Ronsse

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  1. Alexandra A. Zobova
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  2. Timothée Habra
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  3. Nicolas Van der Noot
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  4. Houman Dallali
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  5. Nikolaos G. Tsagarakis
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  6. Paul Fisette
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  7. Renaud Ronsse
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Correspondence to Alexandra A. Zobova.

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Zobova, A.A., Habra, T., Van der Noot, N. et al. Multi-physics modelling of a compliant humanoid robot. Multibody Syst Dyn 39, 95–114 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11044-016-9545-4

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