Biped navigation in rough environments using on-board sensing

We present an approach to navigating a biped robot safely and efficiently through a complicated environment of previously unknown obstacles and terrain using only on-board sensing and odometry. Sensing of the environment is performed by a pivoting laser scanner, which continues to update the terrain representation as the robot walks. Safe stepping motions are planned from this data to follow the user's command, given in the form of an end goal, a rough path, or a joystick input. Results are demonstrated on a prototype robot in several environments.