Synchronizing Virtual Constraints and Preview Controller: a Walking Pattern Generator for the Humanoid Robot COMAN+

In this paper we propose a novel hybrid walking pattern generator which combines results from the virtual constraints and the preview control theories for bipedal locomotion. This choice is motivated by findings in biomechanics that show how the dynamic motion of the human walk is mainly generated by the sagittal component of the stepping. Thus, we choose the conservative preview control to generate the lateral motion while we pick a more dynamical framework such as the virtual constraints for the sagittal motion. We investigate how the time-dependent preview control and the time-independent virtual constraints approach can be integrated together in a humanoid locomotion and finally we show promising results on COMAN+, the new humanoid robot from Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia.