Bipedal Robot Walking Control Using Human Whole-Body Dynamic Telelocomotion

For humanoids to be deployed in demanding situa- tions, such as search and rescue, highly intelligent decision mak- ing and proficient sensorimotor skill is expected. A promising solution is to leverage human prowess by interconnecting robot and human via teleoperation. Towards creating seamless oper- ation, this paper presents a dynamic telelocomotion framework that synchronizes the gait of a human pilot with the walking of a bipedal robot. First, we introduce a method to generate a virtual human walking model from the stepping behavior of a human pilot which serves as a reference for the robot to walk. Second, the dynamics of the walking reference and robot walking are synchronized by applying forces to the human pilot and the robot to achieve dynamic similarity between the two systems. This enables the human pilot to continuously perceive and cancel any asynchrony between the walking reference and robot. A consistent step placement strategy for the robot is derived to maintain dynamic similarity through step transitions. Using our human-machine-interface, we demonstrate that the human pilot can achieve stable and synchronous teleopera- tion of a simulated robot through stepping-in-place, walking, and disturbance rejection experiments. This work provides a fundamental step towards transferring human intelligence and reflexes to humanoid robots.