Fuzzy logic control of a humanoid robot on unstable terrain

This paper describes a novel system for enabling a humanoid robot to balance on highly dynamic terrain using fuzzy logic. We evaluate this system by programming Jimmy, a small, humanoid DARwIn-OP robot, to balance on a bongo board – a simple apparatus consisting of a deck resting on a free-rolling wheel – using our novel fuzzy logic system and a PID controller based on our previous work (Baltes et al. [1]). Both control algorithms are tested using two different control policies: “do the shake,” wherein the robot attempts to keep the bongo board’s deck level by CoM manipulation; and “let’s sway,” wherein the robot pumps its legs up and down at regular intervals in an attempt to induce a state of dynamic stability to the system. Our experiments show that fuzzy logic control is equally capable to PID control for controlling a bongo board system.