The sensor-controller network of the humanoid robot LOLA

Favot, Valerio; Buschmann, Thomas; Schwienbacher, Markus; Ewald, Alexander; Ulbrich, H.

doi:10.1109/humanoids.2012.6651612

Cited by 9 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Conversely, the TORO robot presented by Englsberger et al (2018) uses the Sercos-II protocol with a bandwidth of 16 Mbit/s, achieving a 1 kHz update rate. Similarly, the LOLA robot described by Favot et al (2012) benefits from the Sercos-III protocol with a bandwidth of 100 Mbit/s, enabling it to attain a 1 kHz update rate. Notably, two separate teams have also incorporated the EtherCAT communication protocol into their control architectures.…”

Section: Communication Protocolsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distributed real-time control architecture for electrohydraulic humanoid robots

Jleilaty,

Ammounah,

Abdulmalek

et al. 2024

RIA

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Purpose This paper aims to develop an adaptable control architecture for electrohydraulic humanoid robots (HYDROïD) that emulate the functionality of the human nervous system. The developed control architecture overcomes the limitations of classical centralized and decentralized systems by distributing intelligence across controllers. Design/methodology/approach The proposed solution is a distributed real-time control architecture with robot operating system (ROS). The joint controllers have the intelligence to make decisions, dominate their actuators and publish their state. The real-time capabilities are ensured in the master controller by using a Preempt-RT kernel beside open robot control software middleware to operate the real-time tasks and in the customized joint controllers by free real-time operating systems firmware. Systems can be either centralized, where all components are connected to a central unit or decentralized, where distributed units act as interfaces between the I/Os and the master controller when the master controller is without the ability to make decisions. Findings The proposed architecture establishes a versatile and adaptive control framework. It features a centralized hardware topology with a master PC and distributed joint controllers, while the software architecture adapts based on the task. It operates in a distributed manner for precise, force-independent motions and in a decentralized manner for tasks requiring compliance and force control. This design enables the examination of the sensorimotor loop at both low-level joint controllers and the high-level master controller. Originality/value It developed a control architecture emulating the functionality of the human nervous system. The experimental validations were performed on the HYDROïD. The results demonstrated 50% advancements in the update rate compared to other humanoids and 30% in the latency of the master processor and the control tasks.

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Section: Communication Protocolsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distributed real-time control architecture for electrohydraulic humanoid robots

Jleilaty,

Ammounah,

Abdulmalek

et al. 2024

RIA

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“…We omit a detailed description of LOLA's previous hardand software setup. Instead we refer to various publications that cover its core components: [1] and [41] (electromechanical hardware), [42] (communication), [43] (computer vision), [44] (navigation), [45] (motion planning), [46] (stabilization), [47] (collision avoidance), [48] (disturbance rejection) and [49] (simulation). In this section, we will focus on the limitations of the previous setup with respect to the multi-contact scenario, i. e., the reason for the upgrade.…”

Section: Previous Limitations and Requirementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

LOLA v1.1 – An Upgrade in Hardware and Software Design for Dynamic Multi-Contact Locomotion

Seiwald

Sygulla

et al. 2021

2020 IEEE-RAS 20th International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids)

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This paper presents recent and ongoing hardware and software upgrades to our humanoid robot LOLA. The purpose of these modifications is to achieve dynamic multicontact locomotion, i. e., fast bipedal walking with additional hand-environment support for increased stability and robustness against unforeseen disturbances. The upper body of LOLA has been completely redesigned with an enhanced lightweight torso frame and more robust arms with additional degrees of freedom, which extend the reachable workspace. The mechanical structure of the torso is optimized for stiffness with the help of an experimental modal analysis performed on the real hardware, while the new arm topology is the result of kinematic optimization for typical use-cases in a multi-contact setting. We also propose extensive changes to our software framework, which include a complete redesign of the onboard, real-time perception and navigation module. Although the hardware upgrade is finished and the overall software design is complete, the implementation of various modules is still work in progress.

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“…Although this enables a 1 khz control rate, the bitrate would probably not allow for much higher update rates. The former hardware design of our humanoid robot LOLA used a Sercos-III bus based on 100 Mbit /s-Ethernet [16]. However, the distributed I/O boards and interfaces to the actual joint drives were inhouse made and complex.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

An EtherCAT-Based Real-Time Control System Architecture for Humanoid Robots

Sygulla

Wittmann

Seiwald

et al. 2018

2018 IEEE 14th International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE)

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The design of humanoid robots naturally requires the simultaneous control of a high number of joints. Moreover, the performance of the overall robot is strongly determined by the low-level control system as all high-level software e.g. for locomotion planning and control is built on top of it. In order to achieve high update rates and high bandwidth for the joint control, an advanced real-time control system architecture is required. However, outdated communication protocols with associated limits in the achievable update rates are still used in nowadays humanoid robots. Moreover, the performance of the low-level control systems is not analyzed in detail or the systems rely on specialized hardware, which lacks reliability and persistence. We present a reliable and high-performance control system architecture for humanoid robots based on the ETHERCAT technology. To the authors' knowledge this is the only system, which operates at control rates beyond 2 khz and input/output latencies below 1 ms. Furthermore, we present a novel learning-based feedforward control strategy to improve joint tracking performance. This improved joint control method and the communication system are evaluated on our humanoid robot LOLA. Our software framework is available online to allow other researchers to benefit from our experiences.

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The sensor-controller network of the humanoid robot LOLA

Cited by 9 publications

References 19 publications

Distributed real-time control architecture for electrohydraulic humanoid robots

Distributed real-time control architecture for electrohydraulic humanoid robots

LOLA v1.1 – An Upgrade in Hardware and Software Design for Dynamic Multi-Contact Locomotion

An EtherCAT-Based Real-Time Control System Architecture for Humanoid Robots

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