Stability margin for robust walking gaits constructed by center of pressure

Usually, humanoid walking gaits are only roughly distinguished between stable and unstable. The evaluation of a stable humanoid walking gait is difficult to quantify in scales. And, it is extremely hard to adjust humanoid robots in suitable a walking gait for different movement objectives such as fast walking, uneven floor walking, and so on. This paper proposes a stability margin constructed by center of pressure (COP) to evaluate the gait stability of humanoid walking. The stability margin is modeled by the COP regions that a humanoid robot needs for stable standing. We derive the mathematical model for COP position by dividing the walking gait into single and double support phases in order to measure the stability of the COP regions. An actual measuring system for the stable COP regions is designed and implemented. The measured COP trajectory of a walking gait is eventually evaluated with respect to the stable COP regions for the stability margins. The evaluation focuses on weak stability areas to be improved for robust walking gaits. To demonstrate the robustness of the improved walking gait, we replicate the experiment on three different terrains. The experiments demonstrate that the walking gaits developed based on stable COP region can be applied for different movement objectives.