Real-time Dynamic Bipedal Avoidance

In real-world settings, bipedal robots must avoid collisions with people and their environment. Further, a biped can choose between modes of avoidance: (1) adjust its pose while standing or (2) step to gain maneuverability. We present a real-time motion planner and multibody control framework for dynamic bipedal robots that avoids multiple moving obstacles and automatically switches between standing and stepping modes as necessary. By leveraging a reduced-order model (i.e. Linear Inverted Pendulum Model) and a half-space relaxation of the safe region, the planner is formulated as a convex optimization problem (i.e. Quadratic Programming) that can be used for real-time application with Model-Predictive-Control (MPC). To facilitate mode switching, we introduce center-of-pressure related slack-variables to the convex planning optimization that both shapes the planning cost function and provides a mode switching criterion for dynamic locomotion. Finally, we implement the proposed algorithm on a 3D Cassie bipedal robot and present hardware experiments showing real-time bipedal standing avoidance, stepping avoidance, and automatic switching of avoidance modes.