Mobile manipulation of humanoid robots -Analysis of manipulability and stability in mobile manipulation

This paper describes mobile manipulation of humanoid robots. A humanoid robot is a kind of integrated machines: two arm and two leg mechanism. It could be well applied to mobile manipulation in non-routine task automation. The main objective of the mobile manipulation is to obtain versatile and efficient manipulation by the arms. In this respect the legs are required to assist the arms obtaining their high manipulability by changing step length and timing of step motion. Accordingly, the required motion of the legs in mobile manipulation is different from conventional biped locomotion. From this point of view, the relationship between manipulability of the arm and various leg motions is analyzed and evaluated by computer simulations.