Human Balance Control and Understanding of Aerial Sense by Humanoid Robots

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 20H04267
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 61050:Intelligent robotics-related
• Research Institution: Waseda University (2022-2023); Meiji University (2020-2021)
• Principal Investigator: HASHIMOTO Kenji 早稲田大学, 理工学術院(情報生産システム研究科・センター), 教授 (10449340)
• Project Period (FY): 2020-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: ヒューマノイド / 人型ロボット / 脚型ロボット

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study aims to understand human balance control by modeling the human motor control system and implementing it into a humanoid robot. Focusing on the motion synergy (the planar covariation), which is a characteristic of human gait, we introduced this feature as a reward in reinforcement learning. This approach suggested that the planar covariation is one of the factors characterizing human walking motions, such as heel-strike and toe-off walking. Inspired by human jumping movements, we devised a method to generate jumping motions for robots using linear model predictive control. This method includes inequality constraints ensuring the center of pressure remains within the support area and equality constraints preventing the robot from rotating during the flight phase. The jumping motion was successfully realized in both simulations and actual robots.

Free Research Field

ロボティクス

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

ヒトのバランス制御をモデル化することができれば，平衡機能障害などの感覚器疾患の理解につながる．ロボットは各感覚器官のセンサ入力の大小や遅延を任意に変更することができるため，感覚器疾患の予防や治療，機能回復のためのリハビリテーションに有用なデータを提供することができる．ロボットはそれ自身がセンサの集合体であり，運動に関わる様々なデータを取得することはヒトに比べ容易であり，実験の再現性も高い．以上のように，本研究の成果はロボット工学，機械工学，人間工学などの幅広い工学分野だけでなく，脳科学やスポーツ科学，病態神経科学，実験病理学など様々な分野への波及効果が期待され，学術的・社会的に意義がある．