A Robotic Lower Limb With Eight DoFs and Whole-Foot Tactile Perception for Anthropomorphic Behavior Performance

Abstract

Humanoid lower limbs with tactile cognition are crucial for future bipedal robots developing advanced bionic intelligence, such as owning autonomous reflexes and performing human-like actions. Most existing robotic lower limbs focus on providing physical support and mobility, with little work on more bionic DoFs or tactile sensing abilities that are more than significant for a fully humanoid system. This paper develops a robotic lower limb with whole-foot tactile sensing capability. An eight-DoF mechanism with humanoid joints is designed comprehensively, and a tactile sensor with electric double-layer capacitors principle wraps the special-shaped foot surface. An STM32-based circuit integrating perception and control with a real-time inverse kinematics algorithm is experimentally demonstrated. This work provides novel insight and methodology for humanoid robots and tactile-based bionic intelligence.