293 results about "Humanoid robot nao" patented technology

Embodiments of the present disclosure are directed to the technical features relating to the ability of being able to create complex robotic humanoid movements, actions, and interactions with tools and the instrumented environment by automatically building movements for the humanoid; actions and behaviors of the humanoid based on a set of computer-encoded robotic movement and action primitives. The primitives are defined by motions / actions of articulated degrees of freedom that range in complexity from simple to complex, and which can be combined in any form in serial / parallel fashion. These motion-primitives are termed to be minimanipulations and each has a clear time-indexed command input-structure and output behavior / performance profile that is intended to achieve a certain function. Minimanipulations comprise a new way of creating a general programmable-by-example platform for humanoid robots. One or more minimanipulation electronic libraries provide a large suite of higher-level sensing-and-execution sequences that are common building blocks for complex tasks, such as cooking, taking care of the infirm, or other tasks performed by the next generation of humanoid robots.

A robotic system includes a humanoid robot with robotic joints each moveable using an actuator(s), and a distributed controller for controlling the movement of each of the robotic joints. The controller includes a visual perception module (VPM) for visually identifying and tracking an object in the field of view of the robot under threshold lighting conditions. The VPM includes optical devices for collecting an image of the object, a positional extraction device, and a host machine having an algorithm for processing the image and positional information. The algorithm visually identifies and tracks the object, and automatically adapts an exposure time of the optical devices to prevent feature data loss of the image under the threshold lighting conditions. A method of identifying and tracking the object includes collecting the image, extracting positional information of the object, and automatically adapting the exposure time to thereby prevent feature data loss of the image.

A robot apparatus which, by exploiting limited resources highly efficiently, is capable of making expressions matched to the motion or to complex variegated feeling or instinct states, representing the crucial information in achieving smooth communication with the human being, is disclosed. A method of expression by the robot apparatus is also disclosed. The robot apparatus expresses plural states, such as emotional states or the processing states of perceptual recognition, by a light radiating device loaded at a location of the head part of the humanoid robot apparatus walking on two legs. The light radiating device includes e.g. the color hue, saturation and patterns of light emission as expressive units represented independently of one another. A plural number of orthogonal states, that is, the emotional states and the states of perceptual recognition, are expressed simultaneously, using a plural number of the orthogonal representations of the light radiating device correlated by a unit for correlating plural reciprocally orthogonal states, derived from the own inner states or external stimuli, with at least one expressive unit.

A robot apparatus which, by exploiting limited resources highly efficiently, is capable of making expressions matched to the motion or to complex variegated feeling or instinct states, representing the crucial information in achieving smooth communication with the human being, is disclosed. A method of expression by the robot apparatus is also disclosed. The robot apparatus expresses plural states, such as emotional states or the processing states of perceptual recognition, by a light radiating device loaded at a location of the head part of the humanoid robot apparatus walking on two legs. The light radiating device includes e.g. the color hue, saturation and patterns of light emission as expressive units represented independently of one another. A plural number of orthogonal states, that is, the emotional states and the states of perceptual recognition, are expressed simultaneously, using a plural number of the orthogonal representations of the light radiating device correlated by a unit for correlating plural reciprocally orthogonal states, derived from the own inner states or external stimuli, with at least one expressive unit.

A humanoid robot equipped with an interface for natural dialog with an interlocutor is provided. Previously, the modalities of dialog between humanoid robots equipped moreover with evolved displacement functionalities and human beings are limited notably by the capabilities for voice and visual recognition processing that can be embedded onboard said robots. The present disclosure provides robots are presently equipped with capabilities to resolve doubt on a several modalities of communication of the messages that they receive and for combining these various modalities which make it possible to greatly improve the quality and the natural character of dialogs with the robots' interlocutors. This affords simple and user-friendly means for carrying out the programming of the functions making it possible to ensure the fluidity of these multimodal dialogs.

The invention relates to a player humanoid robot, a method and computer programs associated therewith. The prior art does not disclose any humanoid robot able to move on its lower limbs, to perform gestures, to communicate visual and / or audible signs, to receive same and interpret them so as to deduce therefrom appropriate behaviors for participating in a game in time as compere, questioner, questioned, investigator or mobile stake for the game. The hardware architectures, internal software and software for programming the robot of the invention make it possible to carry out these functions and to create new game experiences in which the boundaries between virtual world and real world are shifted once again.

The present invention provides a method for planning a path for an autonomous walking humanoid robot that takes an autonomous walking step using environment map information, the method comprising: an initialization step of initializing path input information of the autonomous walking humanoid robot using origin information, destination information, and the environment map information; an input information conversion step of forming a virtual robot including information on the virtual robot obtained by considering the radius and the radius of gyration of the autonomous walking humanoid robot based on the initialized path input information; a path generation step of generating a path of the virtual robot using the virtual robot information, the origin information S, the destination information G, and the environment map information; and an output information conversion step of converting the path of the autonomous walking humanoid robot based on the virtual robot path generated in the path generation step.

A system and method for controlling a humanoid robot from a remote location are provided. One or more sensing devices are used to sense positions and movements of a user at an inhabiter station. A computing device generates a virtual character based upon the sensed positions and movements of the user and provides a plurality of outputs for controlling the humanoid robot based upon motion of the virtual character. The computing device includes a master controller to generate the virtual character and its behaviors and to transmit instructions to control motion of the humanoid robot to a slave controller located at the humanoid robot, providing smooth and natural motion of the humanoid robot. The method permits switching between multiple virtual characters in a single scene to control and alter the behavior of one or more humanoid robots located in several geographic locations.

A momentum-based balance controller controls a humanoid robot to maintain balance. The balance controller derives desired rates of change of linear and angular momentum from desired motion of the robot. The balance controller then determines desired center of pressure (CoP) and desired ground reaction force (GRF) to achieve the desired rates of change of linear and angular momentum. The balance controller determines admissible CoP, GRF, and rates of change of linear and angular momentum that are optimally close to the desired value while still allowing the robot to maintain balance. The balance controller controls the robot to maintain balance based on a human motion model such that the robot's motions are human-like. Beneficially, the robot can maintain balance even when subjected to external perturbations, or when it encounters non-level and / or non-stationary ground.

A system and method is disclosed for controlling a robot having at least two legs that is falling down from an upright posture. An allowable stepping zone where the robot is able to step while falling is determined. The allowable stepping zone may be determined based on leg Jacobians of the robot and maximum joint velocities of the robot. A stepping location within the allowable stepping zone for avoiding an object is determined. The determined stepping location maximizes an avoidance angle comprising an angle formed by the object to be avoided, a center of pressure of the robot upon stepping to the stepping location, and a reference point of the robot upon stepping to the stepping location. The reference point, which may be a capture point of the robot, indicates the direction of fall of the robot. The robot is controlled to take a step toward the stepping location.

A control system for a bipedal humanoid robot that utilizes certain fundamental characteristics of bipedal motion to provide a robust and relatively simple balancing and walking mechanism. The system primarily utilizes the concept of “capturability,” which is defined as the ability of the robot to come to a stop without falling by taking N or fewer steps. This ability is considered crucial to legged locomotion and is a useful, yet not overly restrictive criterion for stability. In the preferred embodiment, the bipedal robot is maintained in a 1-step capturable state. This means that future step-locating and driving decisions are made so that the robot may always be brought to a balanced halt with the taking of one step. Other embodiments maintain the bipedal robot in an N-step capturable state, in which the robot may always brought to a balanced halt by taking N or fewer steps.

The invention relates to a series humanoid robot, belonging to the robot field. The invention adopts a digital servo motor as a joint driving device; carbon fiber material is used to design a carbon fiber double-pipe structure and is used on structural parts such as backbone, big arm, small arm, thigh and calf; a similar joint frame type of structure is adopted to design a trunk so as to improve the structural intensity and stability; a pull spring mechanism is used to design a head buffer device so as to enhance the impact resistance of the head; finally a nineteen free DEG C series humanoid robot is realized, which is big in dimension, light in mass, strong in motion flexibility and has a head buffer mechanism. The invention solves the problems of the previous humanoid robot, the motor of which has too much load, is hard to control and is easily burn due to the overweight of the self structure, and provides an effective solution to the protection of the head when the robot falls down or is collided.

A humanoid forearm and hand configuration has a hand conformation such as to be capable of mimicking substantially all of the movements of the human hand, the several component parts of the hand and the wrist-simulating joint coupling the hand to the radius-seeking joint of the forearm being angularly movable with respect to one another each by separate tendon means connected to respective ones of a large number of tightly packed space-seeking jostling air muscles clustered around a radius-simulating shaft.

A robot using less storage and computational resources to embody panoramic attention. The robot includes a panoramic attention module with multiple levels that are hierarchically structured to process different levels of information. The top-level of the panoramic attention module receives information about entities detected from the environment of the robot and maps the entities to a panoramic map maintained by the robot. By mapping and storing high-level entity information instead of low-level sensory information in the panoramic map, the amount of storage and computation resources for panoramic attention can be reduced significantly. Further, the mapping and storing of high-level entity information in the panoramic map also facilitates consistent and logical processing of different conceptual levels of information.

The invention relates to a humanoid robot head based on a bevel gear differential coupling mechanism which relates to a humanoid robot head. The invention solves the problems that the structure of the existing head is not compact, the volumes of independent joints are larger and occupy more space of the head and the head only has two motion ways of pitching and turning round. The turning joint of the head is connected with the motion output support of a neck base joint through a turning joint supporting seat; the neck base joint is connected with a neck seat in a neck base through a neck base joint supporting seat; the shell of the head is fixedly connected with a camera turning support; a free differential bevel gear is separately meshed with two driving differential bevel gears, a driven differential bevel gear is separately meshed with the two driving differential bevel gears; and the gear tooth parameters of the two driving differential bevel gears, the driven differential bevel gear and the free differential bevel gear are consistent, and all the gears constitute the differential bevel gear mechanism. The invention is used in the vision measurement and tracking of the humanoid robot head.

The disclosed Auditory RRC-Humanoid Robot equipped with a verbal-phoneme sound generator is a computer-based system programmed to reach high levels of human-like verbal-AI. Behavioral programming techniques are used to reach human-like levels of identification-AI, recognition-AI, and comprehension-AI of all the words and sentences presented to the robot as verbal input signals. An innovative behavioral speech processing methodology is used to recognize and repeat the acoustic sequential set of phoneme signals that comprise the verbally generated speech of human speakers. The recognized and repeated sequential set of phoneme signals are then mapped onto a unique phonetic structure such as all the words and clauses listed in a 50,000 word lexicon that may then make up the vocabulary of the RRC-Robot. The system is programmed to hear and understand verbal speech with its auditory sensors, and intelligently responds by verbally talking with its verbal-phoneme sound generator.

A system and method for motion control of a humanoid robot are provided. The system includes a remote controller for recognizing three-dimensional image information including two-dimensional information and distance information of a user, determining first and second reference points on the basis of the three-dimensional image information, calculating variation in angle of a joint on the basis of three-dimensional coordinates of the first and second reference points, and transmitting a joint control signal through a wired / wireless network. The system also includes a robot for checking joint control data from the joint control signal received from the remote controller and varying an angle of the joint to move according to the user's motion.

The present invention provides an animation creation program whereby the posture of a structure comprising a plurality of links can be determined by means of a simpler and easer operation. In accordance with the movement of one link in the structure comprising a plurality of links, the animation creation program of the present invention automatically determines the spatial positions of the other links of the structure so that the structure retains a posture that is as natural as possible. The animation creation program of the present invention uses, for example, inverse kinematics computation that is a computation method for controlling a human-type robot (humanoid) and is based on a matrix known as a Jacobian and the inverse matrix thereof which is known as the Singularity-Robust Inverse (SR-Inverse). By using this computation method in an animation creation program, in the creation of an animation of a structure comprising a plurality of links, it is possible, when moving one link of a structure displayed on a screen, to automatically determine the positions of the other links of the structure so that the posture of the structure as a whole does not become unnatural, and to create an animation of the structure comprising a plurality of links by means of a simpler and easer operation.

Disclosed are a robot hand and a humanoid robot having the same. The robot hand includes a plurality of finger members and a base member to which one end of the finger members is rotatably coupled, respectively. The finger members are rotated through pneumatic pressure so that intervals between adjacent finger members are changed. If the finger members are not used, the intervals between the finger members are widened so that the finger members are prevented from being damaged when the finger members collide with walls or objects.

A robotic system includes a humanoid robot with robotic joints each moveable using an actuator(s), and a distributed controller for controlling the movement of each of the robotic joints. The controller includes a visual perception module (VPM) for visually identifying and tracking an object in the field of view of the robot under threshold lighting conditions. The VPM includes optical devices for collecting an image of the object, a positional extraction device, and a host machine having an algorithm for processing the image and positional information. The algorithm visually identifies and tracks the object, and automatically adapts an exposure time of the optical devices to prevent feature data loss of the image under the threshold lighting conditions. A method of identifying and tracking the object includes collecting the image, extracting positional information of the object, and automatically adapting the exposure time to thereby prevent feature data loss of the image.

The disclosed visual RRC-humanoid robot is a computer-based system that has been programmed to reach human-like levels of visualization Artificial Intelligence (AI). Behavioral-programming techniques are used to reach human-like levels of identification AI, recognition AI, visualization AI, and comprehension AI. The system is programmed to identify, recognize, visualize and comprehend the full array of sizes, distances, shapes, and colors of objects recorded in the FOV of the system. The following innovative features have been incorporated into the system: (i) incorporation of the RRC, (ii) incorporation of the Relational Correlation Sequencer (RCS): A proprietary RRC-module, (iii) a paradigm shift in the analytical-programming methodology employed in computer vision systems, (iv) incorporation of a central hub of intelligence, (v) design of a “self knowledge” capability and Internalization of all data, and (vi) design of an interface circuit compatible with human-like levels of visualization-AI.

The invention relates to an anthropomorphic robot autonomously dancing along with rhythm. The brain of the robot is provided with an embedded computer system with musical rhythm recognition capability. The embedded computer system mainly comprises a hearing subsystem, a rhythm recognition subsystem and a dancing movement combination subsystem; wherein, the hearing subsystem obtains external played music by a sensor and converts the music into digital music signals which serve as the input of the rhythm recognition subsystem; the rhythm recognition subsystem processes the digital music signals and obtains the rhythm of the music and the characters of beats which comprises beats per minute and the beginning time of beats; the dancing movement combination subsystem autonomously combines dances according to the rhythm characters obtained by the rhythm recognition subsystem; the three subsystems process in parallel in the mode of a production line to cause the robot to autonomously dance along with rhythm. The anthropomorphic robot can autonomously perform a complete set of graceful and integrated dances along with the rhythm of the music. In addition, the anthropomorphic robot has the application prospect of art, education and recreational activity.

Disclosed are a robot hand and a humanoid robot having the same. The robot hand includes a plurality of finger members and a base member to which one end of the finger members is rotatably coupled, respectively. The finger members are rotated through pneumatic pressure so that intervals between adjacent finger members are changed. If the finger members are not used, the intervals between the finger members are widened so that the finger members are prevented from being damaged when the finger members collide with walls or objects.

A five-fingered hand device suitably applicable to a humanoid robot is provided. The device includes a hand body (2) which has a base (4) and five finger mechanisms (5) to (9), a drive unit (3) which drives the finger mechanisms, and a control unit (36) which controls bending and stretching of the finger mechanisms. The drive unit (3) has driven fluid pressure cylinders provided inside the hand body (2) and driving fluid pressure cylinders (37) provided outside the hand body (2), the driven fluid pressure cylinders being connected to the driving fluid pressure cylinders via fluid pressure transmission pipes (45).

An extensible task engine framework for humanoid robots. Robot instructions are stored as tasks and skills. Tasks are designed so that they can be executed by a variety of robots with differing configurations. A task can refer to zero or more skills. A skill can be designed for a particular configuration of robot. A task can be transferred from robot to robot. When executed on a particular robot, the task makes calls to one or more skills that can take advantage of the capabilities of that robot.

Disclosed herein are a robot actuator and a humanoid robot having the same. The robot actuator includes a rotation driving source, a ball screw member including a ball screw part connected to the rotation driving source and a nut part connected to the ball screw part, a guide member separated in parallel from the ball screw part, a slider member movably supported by the guide member, and a connection member connecting the slider member and the nut part to move the slider member in connection with movement of the nut part, and the connection member is relatively movably connected to at least one of the nut part and the slider member. Therefore, efficiency in force reflection and back-drivability of the actuator is improved.

A system, method, and computer program product for generating dynamically feasible whole-body motion of a humanoid robot while realizing specified upper-body task motion are described. A kinematically feasible upper-body motion is generated based on the specified upper-body motion. A series of zero-moment points (ZMP) are computed for the generated motion and used to determine whether such motion is dynamically feasible. If the motion is not dynamically feasible, then the torso acceleration is modified to make the motion dynamically feasible, and otherwise synchronized as needed. A series of modified ZMP is determined based on the modified torso acceleration and used to distribute the resultant net ground reaction force and moment to the two feet.

The embodiment of the invention discloses a humanoid robot based intelligent reminding method and device. The humanoid robot based intelligent reminding device can be moved to a place where a to-be-reminded target locates to perform targeted reminding. According to the embodiment of the invention, the humanoid robot based intelligent reminding method comprises the steps of: obtaining a reminding task carrying with to-be-reminded target information; moving the humanoid robot based intelligent reminding device into a preset scope of the place where the to-be-reminded target locates based on the to-be-reminded target information when the reminding task is triggered; confirming the to-be-reminded target based on the to-be-reminded target information; and reminding the to-be-reminded target. By firstly obtaining the to-be-reminded target information, moving the device to the preset scope of the place where the to-be-reminded target locates based on the to-be-reminded target information and then reminding after locking the to-be-reminded target through other to-be-reminded target information, the humanoid robot based intelligent reminding method realizes targeted reminding, prevents a user from missing the reminding for one aspect, keeps the reminding content secret within a certain range for the other aspect, and avoids obstructing life and rest of other persons at the same time.

[Object] To provide a hybrid actuator attaining both driving force and responsiveness, capable of reducing inertia of a movable portion.[Solution] A pneumatic air muscle has a cylinder (112) provided in a flexible member (100) forming a pneumatic artificial muscle. At the center of an upper lid element (109) of the cylinder, a through hole is opened, and an inner wire (103) of a Bowden cable passes through this through hole and is coupled by means of a spring (106) to a bottom portion of the cylinder. When the pneumatic artificial muscle contracts, the inner wire (103) and the pneumatic air muscle move together because of the stopper (105), and the contraction force is transmitted. In contrast, when the pneumatic air muscle extends, the stopper (105) is disengaged, while the tension of inner wire (103) is kept by the spring (106) to prevent slacking.