CoDyCo · Whole-body Compliant Dynamical Contacts in Cognitive Humanoids

The aim of CoDyCo is to advance the current control and cognitive understanding about robust, goaldirectedwhole-body motion interaction with multiple contacts. CoDyCo will go beyond traditional approaches: (1) proposing methodologies for performing coordinated interaction tasks with complex systems; (2) combining planning and compliance to deal with predictable and unpredictable events and contacts; (3) validating theoretical advances in real-world interaction scenarios.First, CoDyCo will advance the state-of-the-art in the way robots coordinate physical interaction andphysical mobility. Traditional industrial applications involve robots with limited mobility. Consequently,interaction (e.g. manipulation) was treated separately from whole-body posture (e.g. balancing), assumingthe robot firmly connected to the ground. Foreseen applications involve robots with augmented autonomyand physical mobility. Within this novel context, physical interaction influences stability and balance. Toallow robots to surpass barriers between interaction and posture control, CoDyCo will be grounded inprinciples governing whole-body coordination with contact dynamics.Second, CoDyCo will go beyond traditional approaches in dealing with all perceptual and motor aspectsof physical interaction, unpredictability included. Recent developments in compliant actuation and touchsensing allow safe and robust physical interaction from unexpected contact including humans. The nextadvancement for cognitive robots, however, is the ability not only to cope with unpredictable contact, butalso to exploit predictable contact in ways that will assist in goal achievement.Third, the achievement of the project objectives will be validated in real-world scenarios with the iCubhumanoid robot engaged in whole-body goal-directed tasks. The evaluations will show the iCub exploitingrigid supportive contacts, learning to compensate for compliant contacts, and utilizing assistive physicalinteraction.