This paper presents the design, the construction and testing of a teach pendant for humanoid robotics applications. The system is equipped with a touch-based Graphical User Interface (GUI) from which the robot's joints and the robot's end-effectors can be easily controlled in the joint and Cartesian space respectively. A visual representation of the legs pose were integrated in the interface allowing the operator to test the motion of the limbs before their actual execution on the real robot. The forward and inverse kinematic models were formalized according to the Denavit-Hartenberg convention and implemented in Python 3 with the support of the Tkinter, NumPy and Matplotlib libraries. The chassis of the teach-pendant was designed using SolidWorks software to accommodate a 9-inch display with a touch sensor, a 5000 mAh battery, a Raspberry pi 3, and an ATmega168 microcontroller. On the frontal panel, rotary encoders and different buttons are present to access the menu and precisely tune the control variables.

In this paper we present a human-oriented approach to the study of the biped gait for a humanoid robot. Starting from the analysis of the human lower-limbs, we figured out which features of the human legs are fundamental for a correct walking motion and can be adopted in the mechanical design of a humanoid robot. In particular we focus here on the knee, designed as a compliant human-like knee instead of a classical pin-joint. For the foot we tried to reproduce in a simple mechanical device the mobility and lightness of the human foot, which is very different from a flat surface and has a big impact on walking. We complete the presentation with considerations about the energy consumption of our humanoid design. In our approach the robot gains in adaptability and energetic efficiency, which are the most challenging issues for a biped robot.