Simple optoelectronic exteroceptive sensor for the control of the dynamic equilibrium of a walking robot

Abstract

Simple optoelectronic exteroceptive sensor for controlling and learning the dynamical equilibrium of a walking robot is presented. Sensor consists of the digital camera and structured light source, for example laser diode module with Diffractive Optical Element. Digital camera captures structured configuration of light spots projected on a surface in front of a robot. There are two variants, the light source position is fixed to the digital camera and there is no reference object at scene. In these case only medial and lateral tilt to plane in front of the robot is estimated and second variant when only light source of the robot is fixed to any part of robot and camera is placed somewhere else. In these case multi-degrees-of-freedom information can be estimated. The image information from the digital camera is input for the control of a dynamical equilibrium of a walking robot. Copyright © 2008 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.