Simultaneous bipedal locomotion based on haptics for teleoperation

This paper proposes a novel, simultaneous bipedal locomotion method using haptics for remote operation of biped robots. In general, traditional biped walking methods require very high computational power and advanced controllers to perform the required task. However, in this proposed method, a master exoskeleton attached to the human’s lower body is used to obtain the trajectory and haptic information to generate the trajectory of the slave biped robot in real time. Lateral motion of the center of mass of the biped is constrained in this experiment. Also, it is considered that no communication delay is presented in between the two systems in this experiment, and they are not discussed in this paper. Since a direct motion transmission is used in the proposed method, this method is quite straight forward and a simultaneous walking can be realized at the same time with high performance. Also, it does not require an exact dynamic model of the biped or specific method to plan the trajectory. The gait pattern of the biped is directly determined by that of the human. Also, the operator can feel the remote environment through the exoskeleton robot. Results obtained from the experiments validate the proposed method.