A dual-motor joint model for humanoid robots

To make humanoid robots walking fast, it's important to improve driving force of their leg joints. Usually, each joint of humanoid robots is driven by a single motor. Dual-motor joint, on the other hand, is one of the candidate solutions to meet the power requirement needed for fast walking. This paper proposed a new dual-motor control model. In the model, two motors are treated as a single control plant instead of two parallel control plants. With the usage of current distributor, the control model can pump different current to each motor freely so as to eliminate the unbalance of the load imposed on each motor. Simulation and experiment show that the proposed model works well under high joint load and it can be used on a fast walking humanoid robot.