Design and Intelligent Control of an Energy-Efficient Humanoid Robot

This work of thesis deals both with design and intelligent control of a humanoid robot, and its main aim is to develop an energy-efficient and dynamically stable locomotion. In the first part, we present a systematic method to evaluate the energy efficiency of a biped robot. This method is then used to obtain some information about the performance of materials and actuators that could be used for design. Results collected are integrated with the experience of previous works, and finally summarized to suggest some efficient configurations. These indications are meant to be used for future developments of LARP, the humanoid robot of the AIRLab, Politecnico di Milano. The method adopted, however, is general enough to produce valid results for any robot, and we hope our considerations will also help in evaluating design choices for future humanoid robots. In the second part, instead, we propose some possible enhancements to the controller developed at Institute Mihailo Pupin, Belgrade, Serbia, in order to improve its performance in terms of stability and efficiency of the robot. Moreover, the on-line joint trajectories update we developed makes the robot capable of learning from the experience acquired. These two parts, combined together, permitted us to go through all the main steps of the process of development of an energy efficient and dynamically stable humanoid robot.