Sony Corporation

Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International

Japan Science and Technology Agency

Jun Nakanishi

Jun Morimoto

Gen Endo

Gordon Cheng

Mitsuo Kawato

Gordon Chang

A robot apparatus having a plurality of movable sections includes a motion control section that generates a control signal for the periodic motion of at least part of the movable sections according to the output of an oscillator showing self-oscillation and entrainment characteristics, an environment measuring section that measures the motion according to the control signal for the movable sections or the physical environment at the time of the motion of the movable sections, a periodic oscillator control section that inputs a periodic signal to the oscillator as feedback according to the outcome of the measurement by the environment measuring section and generates an entrainment phenomenon and a non-periodic oscillator control section that inputs a non-periodic or temporary feedback signal to the oscillator.

Robot apparatus and method of controlling the same

A robot has a plurality of limbs with joints; a driving section for driving the joints periodically to form periodic movements on a floor by means of the plural limbs; and a controller capable of performing various operations. The operations include detecting over time floor reaction forces received through the plural limbs contacting the floor during the periodic movement; deriving a center position of the floor reaction forces received from ground contacting limbs during movement and a change in the center position over time; calculating desired angles of the plural joints directly based on the derived current center position, without deriving a desired center position indicating the center position at a future time, controlling the plural joints based on the calculated desired angles; and driving the robot with the controlled plural joints.

Driving method, drive control apparatus, and robot

The motion of the movable sections of the robot is taken for a periodic motion so that the attitude of the robot can be stably controlled in a broad sense of the word by regulating the transfer of the movable sections. More specifically, one or more than one phase generators are used for the robot system and one of the plurality of controllers is selected depending on the generated phase. Then, the controller controls the drive of the movable sections according to continuous phase information. Additionally, the actual phase is estimated from the physical system and the frequency and the phase of the phase generator are regulated by using the estimated value, while the physical phase and the phase generator of the robot system are subjected to mutual entrainment so that consequently, it is possible to control the motion of the robot by effectively using the dynamics of the robot.

Robot and attitude control method of robot

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Kyoto, Japan

Jun Nakanishi