Efficient ZMP Formulation and Effective Whole-Body Motion Generation for a Human-Like Mechanism

An approach of generating dynamic biped motions of a human-like mechanism is proposed. An alternative and efficient formulation of the Zero-Moment Point for dynamic balance and the approximated ground reaction forces/moments are derived from the resultant reaction loads, which includes the gravity, the externally applied loads, and the inertia. The optimization problem is formulated to address the redundancy of the human task, where the general biped and task-specific constraints are imposed depending on the task requirements. The proposed method is fully predictive and generates physically feasible human-like motions from scratch; it does not require any input reference from motion capture or animation. The resulting generated motions demonstrate how a human-like mechanism reacts effectively to different external load conditions in performing a given task by showing realistic features of cause and effect. In addition, the energy-optimality of the upright standing posture is numerically verified among infinite feasible static biped postures without self contact. The proposed formulation is beneficial to motion planning, control, and physics-based simulation of humanoids and human models.