Bipedal locomotion has good obstacle avoidance properties. A robot with human appearance has advantages in human-robot communication. However, walking control is difficult due to the complex robot dynamics involved. Stable reference generation is significant in walking control. The Linear Inverted Pendulum Model (LIPM) and the Zero Moment Point (ZMP) criterion are applied in a number of studies for stable walking reference generation of biped robots. This is the main route of reference generation in this paper too. We employ a natural and continuous ZMP reference trajectory for a stable and human-like walk. The ZMP reference trajectories move forward under the sole of the support foot when the robot body is supported by a single leg. Robot center of mass (CoM) trajectory is obtained from predefined ZMP reference trajectories by Fourier series approximation. We reported simulation results with this algorithm in our previous works. This paper presents the first experimental results. Also the use of a ground push phase before foot take-offs reported in our previous works is tested first time together with our ZMP based reference trajectory. The reference generation strategy is tested via walking experiments on the 29 degrees-of-freedom (DOF) human sized full body humanoid robot SURALP (Sabanci University Robotics Research Laboratory Platform). Experiments indicate that the proposed reference trajectory generation technique is successful.

SURALP is a new walking humanoid robot platform designed at Sabanci University - Turkey. The kinematic arrangement of the robot consists of 29 independently driven axes, including legs, arms, waist and a neck. This paper presents the highlights of the design of this robot and experimental walking results. Mechanical design, actuation mechanisms, sensors, the control hardware and algorithms are introduced. The actuation is based on DC motors, belt and pulley systems and Harmonic Drive reduction gears. The sensory equipment consists of joint encoders, force/torque sensors, inertial measurement systems and cameras. The control hardware is based on a dSpace digital signal processor. A smooth walking trajectory is generated. A variety of controllers for landing impact reduction, body inclination and Zero Moment Point (ZMP) regulation, early landing trajectory modification, and foot-ground orientation compliance and independent joint position controllers are employed. A posture zeroing procedure is followed after manual zeroing of the robot joints. The experimental results indicate that the control algorithms presented are successful in improving the stability of the walk.

At large-scale urban earthquake disaster, human search is the most important process in rescue activities. This research develops a parallel cable-driven robot focusing on information acquisition from sky at crushed structures at landslide caused by huge earthquake. This robot is driven by multiple cables to move a sensor head with 6 degrees of freedom. This paper proposes the concept of this new search system, and illustrates usefulness of the human body searching strategy by several experimental results.

A number of approaches based on sliding mode control methodology are proposed in the literature for the position control of robotic manipulators. An important problem in this context is chattering, that is high frequency oscillations in the velocity. In this paper, a novel approach is considered which eliminates chattering if the controller parameters are set suitably. A fuzzy adaptation scheme is devised for the online adaptation of the parameters of this method. Simulation results show that the fuzzy rule based adaptation scheme ensures good controller performance without chattering.

This paper is concerned with the feedback linearization control of a flexible joint anthropoid robot. The theory to derive a linearizing control law for a certain type of dynamic equations is reviewed and the model for a particular manipulator is derived. Based on this model a linearization controller is designed and its tracking performance is compared with classical controllers.>