Acroban the Humanoid Playful and Compliant Physical Human-Robot Interaction

Meet Acroban, the first humanoid robot that can move around, walk and play with children without losing its balance. Acroban exhibits a range of behaviours that it can combine, and can react intuitively, naturally and creatively to uncontrolled external human intervention. Visitors will be able to see Acroban in action and interact with him.

Acroban is able to move and walk dynamically while keeping its equilibrium even if unpredicted physical interactions are initiated by humans such as children.

This is made possible thanks to the combination of three crucial features: compliance (the rigidity and elasticity of all articulations is controlled dynamically depending on external forces applied to the robot), morphology (the robot as a complex vertebral column and hips and ankles that allow it to keep its equilibrium with a large variety of external perturbations), and motor and interactive primitives (dynamical systems with a stable and naturally drivable attractor dynamics, as well as with a particular design of movement which creates a strong illusion of life).

The system is presented in an entertainment human-robot interaction context, in particular allowing children to engage in the interaction. For example, when the robot is walking anyone can take its arms, like we take the arms of a baby learning to walk, and drive in a fluid and transparent manner the robot in any direction.

Contact: Dr. Olivier Ly

Primary affiliation: LABRI / INRIA Flowers
Position: Associate Professor
City: Talence
Country: France
Web Site: http://flowers.inria.fr/

Stand: 13