Optimization-Based Posture Generation for Whole-Body Contact Motion by Contact Point Search on the Body Surface

Abstract

Whole-body contact is an effective strategy for improving the stability and efficiency of the motion of robots. For robots to automatically perform such motions, we propose a posture generation method that employs all available surfaces of the robot links. By representing the contact point on the body surface by twodimensional configuration variables, the joint positions and contact points are simultaneously determined through a gradient-based optimization. By generating motions with the proposed method, we present experiments in which robots manipulate objects effectively utilizing whole-body contact.