Meltran V, a new biped robot with telescopic legs, is introduced. For 3D walking control of the robot we analyze the dynamics of a three-dimensional inverted pendulum in which motion is constrained to move along an arbitrarily defined plane. From this analysis we obtain simple linear dynamics, the three-dimensional linear inverted pendulum mode (3D-LIPM). Using a real-time control method based on 3D-LIPM, the Meltran V robot successfully demonstrated 3D dynamic walking without the use of any prepared trajectories.

A balance control method for a humanoid robot is presented. It consists of a contact torque controller which is designed to have a good backdrivability and a feedback control of the total angular momentum and the center of gravity of a robot. A simulation result of a balance control using a 26 DOF humanoid robot model is shown.

We are studying a wheeled robot with the ability of going up and down stairs. We previously developed a wheeled robot called a 'variable structure type four-wheeled robot' capable of using over a single step, but it cannot negotiate the stair whose tread is short compared with the wheelbase of the robot. In this paper, we propose a 'biped type leg-wheeled robot' which has ability to pass over stairs with short treads. We also propose a trajectory planning method which uses a nominal static walking trajectory as a reference for the dynamic control of the robot and investigate a trajectory control method using computer simulation. We finally confirm the effectiveness of our proposed method with a successful experiment of going up stairs by this robot.