FILIPPO MARIA SMALDONE

Dottore di ricerca

ciclo: XXXV


supervisore: Giuseppe Oriolo

Titolo della tesi: From Walking To Running: Robust and 3D Humanoid Gait Generation via MPC

Humanoid robots are platforms that can succeed in tasks conceived for humans. From locomotion in unstructured environments, to driving cars, or working in industrial plants, these robots have a potential that is yet to be disclosed in systematic every-day-life applications. Such a perspective, however, is opposed by the need of solving complex engineering problems under the hardware and software point of view. In this thesis, we focus on the software side of the problem, and in particular on locomotion control. The operativity of a legged humanoid is subordinate to its capability of realizing a reliable locomotion. In many settings, perturbations may undermine the balance and make the robot fall. Moreover, complex and dynamic motions might be required by the context, as for instance it could be needed to start running or climbing stairs to achieve a certain location in the shortest time. We present gait generation schemes based on Model Predictive Control (MPC) that tackle both the problem of robustness and tridimensional dynamic motions. The proposed control schemes adopt the typical paradigm of centroidal MPC for reference motion generation, enforcing dynamic balance through the Zero Moment Point condition, plus a whole-body controller that maps the generated trajectories to joint commands. Each of the described predictive controllers also feature a so-called stability constraint, preventing the generation of diverging Center of Mass trajectories with respect to the Zero Moment Point. Robustness is addressed by modeling the humanoid as a Linear Inverted Pendulum and devising two types of strategies. For persistent perturbations, a way to use a disturbance observer and a technique for constraint tightening (to ensure robust constraint satisfaction) are presented. In the case of impulsive pushes instead, techniques for footstep and timing adaptation are introduced. The underlying approach is to interpret robustness as a MPC feasibility problem, thus aiming at ensuring the existence of a solution for the constrained optimization problem to be solved at each iteration in spite of the perturbations. This perspective allows to devise simple solutions to complex problems, favoring a reliable real-time implementation. For the tridimensional locomotion, on the other hand, the humanoid is modeled as a Variable Height Inverted Pendulum. Based on it, a two stage MPC is introduced with particular emphasis on the implementation of the stability constraint. The overall result is a gait generation scheme that allows the robot to overcome relatively complex environments constituted by a non-flat terrain, with also the capability of realizing running gaits. The proposed methods are validated in different settings: from conceptual simulations in Matlab to validations in the DART dynamic environment, up to experimental tests on the NAO and the OP3 platforms.

Produzione scientifica

11573/1698209 - 2023 - Neuroinflammation and status epilepticus. a narrative review unraveling a complex interplay
Foiadelli, T; Santangelo, A; Costagliola, G; Costa, E; Scacciati, M; Riva, A; Volpedo, G; Smaldone, M; Bonuccelli, A; Clemente, A M; Ferretti, A; Savasta, S; Striano, P; Orsini, A - 01g Articolo di rassegna (Review)
rivista: FRONTIERS IN PEDIATRICS (Lausanne : Frontiers Media S.A., 2013-) pp. 1-12 - issn: 2296-2360 - wos: WOS:001117806000001 (0) - scopus: 2-s2.0-85178905485 (2)

11573/1666127 - 2022 - Handling Non-Convex Constraints in MPC-Based Humanoid Gait Generation
Habib, Andrew S.; Smaldone, Filippo M.; Scianca, Nicola; Lanari, Leonardo; Oriolo, Giuseppe - 04b Atto di convegno in volume
congresso: 2022 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2022) (Kyoto; Japan)
libro: 2022 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2022) - (978-1-6654-7927-1)

11573/1616174 - 2022 - Task-Oriented Generation of Stable Motions for Wheeled Inverted Pendulum Robots
Kanneworff, Marco; Belvedere, Tommaso; Scianca, Nicola; Smaldone, Filippo M.; Lanari, Leonardo; Oriolo, Giuseppe - 04b Atto di convegno in volume
congresso: 2022 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2022) (Philadelphia, USA)
libro: 2022 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2022) - (978-1-7281-9681-7)

11573/1640208 - 2022 - From Walking to Running: 3D Humanoid Gait Generation via MPC
Smaldone, Filippo Maria; Scianca, Nicola; Lanari, Leonardo; Oriolo, Giuseppe - 01a Articolo in rivista
rivista: FRONTIERS IN ROBOTICS AND AI (Lausanne : Frontiers Media S.A., 2014-) pp. - - issn: 2296-9144 - wos: WOS:000863109200001 (3) - scopus: 2-s2.0-85137999475 (3)

11573/1604071 - 2021 - MPC-based gait generation for humanoids: From walking to running
Smaldone, Filippo M.; Scianca, Nicola; Lanari, Leonardo; Oriolo, Giuseppe - 04b Atto di convegno in volume
congresso: 2021 I-RIM Conference (Roma)
libro: 2021 I-RIM Conference - (9788894580525)

11573/1504222 - 2021 - Feasibility-Driven Step Timing Adaptation for Robust MPC-Based Gait Generation in Humanoids
Smaldone, Filippo Maria; Scianca, Nicola; Lanari, Leonardo; Oriolo, Giuseppe - 01a Articolo in rivista
rivista: IEEE ROBOTICS AND AUTOMATION LETTERS (USa, Piscataway, NJ: IEEE Robotics and Automation Society) pp. 1582-1589 - issn: 2377-3766 - wos: WOS:000626317700008 (4) - scopus: 2-s2.0-85101215628 (5)

11573/1469560 - 2020 - ZMP Constraint Restriction for Robust Gait Generation in Humanoids
Smaldone, F. M.; Scianca, N.; Modugno, V.; Lanari, L.; Oriolo, G. - 04b Atto di convegno in volume
congresso: 2020 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, ICRA 2020 (Electr Network)
libro: Proceedings - IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation - (978-1-7281-7395-5)

11573/1482486 - 2020 - Robust MPC-Based Gait Generation in Humanoids
Smaldone, Filippo M.; Scianca, Nicola; Lanari, Leonardo; Oriolo, Giuseppe - 04b Atto di convegno in volume
congresso: I-RIM 2020 (2nd Italian Conference on Robotics and Intelligent Machines) (Virtual)
libro: Proceedings of I-RIM 2020 - ()

11573/1385077 - 2019 - Gait Generation using Intrinsically Stable MPC in the Presence of Persistent Disturbances
Smaldone, F. M.; Scianca, N.; Modugno, V.; Lanari, L.; Oriolo, G. - 04b Atto di convegno in volume
congresso: 19th IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, Humanoids 2019 (Toronto; Canada)
libro: 2019 IEEE-RAS 19th International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids) - (978-1-5386-7630-1)

© Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza" - Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Roma