Controlling humanoid robots in topology coordinates

This paper presents an approach to the control of humanoid robot motion, e.g., holding another robot or tangled interactions involving multiple limbs, in a space defined by ‘topology coordinates’. The constraints of tangling can be linearized at every frame of motion synthesis, and can be used together with constraints such as defined by the Zero Moment Point, Center of Mass, inverse kinematics and angular momentum for computing the postures by a linear programming procedure. We demonstrate the utility of this approach using the simulator for the Nao humanoid robot. We show that this approach enables us to synthesize complex motion, such as tangling, very efficiently.