Momentum Control of Humanoid Robots with Series Elastic Actuators

Understand

Humanoid robots may require a degree of compliance at the joint level for improving efficiency, shock tolerance, and safe interaction with humans.

• The presence of joint elasticity, however, complexifies the design of balancing and walking controllers.
• This paper proposes a control framework for extending momentum based controllers developed for stiff actuators to the case of series elastic actuators.
• The key point is to consider the motor velocities as an intermediate control input, and then apply high-gain control to stabilise the desired motor velocities achieving momentum control.