Humanoid Robots

Note: We are not currently looking to hire, but see our hiring notice from time to time for more information.

At IHMC we are developing humanoid robots for operations in urban environments. With our most recent robot, M2V2, several organizations and many individuals have had a significant influence on the work and/or are currently collaborating with us. These include:

• IHMC: Algorithm development, particularly disturbance recovery, using the concept of Capture Points to determine the best stepping location for recovery. Also mechanical design, prototyping, assembly, and debugging.
• MIT Leg Laboratory: M2V2 is based on the robot M2. This project was led by Dr. Gill Pratt. Dan Paluska was the chief mechanical designer. David Robinson designed and anlyzed the actuators. Other contributors include Allen Parseghian, Jerry Pratt, Chee-Meng Chew, John Hu, Andreas Hofmann, Mike Wessler, Pete Dilworth, Ben Krupp, and Chris Morse. Both M2 and M2V2 utilize Series Elastic Actuators, which were invented by Gill Pratt and Matthew Williamson, U.S.patent 5650704.
• Yobotics, Inc.: Mechanical design and prototyping lead.
  • Ben Krupp led the overall mechanical design effort.
• Bucknell University: New foot design, vision head design, and overall mechanical design analysis and improvements.
  • Keith Buffinton is the PI on our joint ONR project and oversees the Bucknell student design team.
  • Steve Shooter spent a sabattical at IHMC assisting with robot design and contruction and design methodologies.
  • Chris Shake spent a 3 month internship at IHMC and assisted with the contruction and implemented some of the key software.
  • Daniel Snyder and Matt Kandler spent the summer of 2009 at IHMC designing and testing a vision head for the robot.
  • Several student design projects are focussing on developing a better force-sensing foot and vision head.
• Delft University Robotics Lab: Algorithm design, robot construction and debugging.
  • Niels van Nieuwenhausen and Twan Koolen each spent 3 month internships working on the robot, assisting with construction and implementing some key software.
  • Riewert van Doesburgh is spending fall term 2009 as an intern working on the robot, assisting in the control of push recovery while walking with limited available footholds.
• University of Michigan: Algorithm design.
  • We built a copy of the robot for Art Kuo's lab.
  • John Rebula implemented some key software and we hope at least part of his PhD thesis will be based on the robot.
• MIT Robot Locomotion Group: Some of the ideas on Capture Points and humanoid stability analysis came together through discussions with Russ Tedrake.
• Honda Research Institute: Much of the work on Push Recovery was done as a collaboration with Ambarish Goswami at the Honda Reseach Institute in Mountain View, CA.

Refer to the links on the left for Publications, Presentations, Pictures, Videos, Simulation, Software, Data, and Timeline and Milestones related to this robot. Also, see the following two links, which will be moved over to this site some time.

• Fast Motions in Biomechanics and Robots, September 7-9, 2005, Heidelberg Germany.
• Humanoids2006, December 4-6, 2006, Genoa Italy.

This project was sponsored by an Army SBIR contract, and an ONR contract. Some of the theoretical and simulation work on Capture Points was sponsored through a contract with Honda Research Institute and much of that work was done in collaboration with Ambarish Goswami.