Skip to main content
Log in

Falling Prediction based on Machine Learning for Biped Robots

  • Regular paper
  • Published:
Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Biped robots are expected to be able to work in complex environments. However, these robots will inevitably fall at times and such falls may cause injury to the robot itself or to people nearby. Therefore, it is necessary to detect that the robot is falling to be able to warn the robot in sufficient time when it is about to fall and to switch its controller to protect the vulnerable parts of the robot. Modeling and analysis of the biped robot falling problem cannot be fully accurate and many current learning-based methods rely on large quantities of fall data that are difficult to use to train fragile robots. A machine learning-based fall detection method is therefore proposed in this paper. This method requires only a small amount of training data to obtain good fall detection, making the training process on the robot platform much safer. A support vector machine is used to determine the state of the robot and the decision boundary of the stable state is updated during motion to enable the classifier to match the motion capability of the robot.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Abdallah, M., Goswami, A.: A biomechanically motivated two-phase strategy for biped upright balance control. In: Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pp. 1996–2001. IEEE (2005)

  2. Fujiwara, K., Kajita, S., Harada, K., Kaneko, K., Hirukawa, H.: An Optimal Planning of Falling Motions of a Humanoid Robot. In: 2007 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (2007)

  3. Fujiwara, K., Kanehiro, F., Kajita, S., Hirukawa, H.: Safe Knee Landing of a Human-Size Humanoid Robot while Falling Forward. In: 2004. (IROS 2004). Proceedings. 2004 IEEE/RSJ International Conference On Intelligent Robots and Systems (2004)

  4. Fujiwara, K., Kanehiro, F., Kajita, S., Kaneko, K., Hirukawa, H.: Ukemi: Falling Motion Control to Minimize Damage to Biped Humanoid Robot. In: Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2002. IEEE/RSJ International Conference On (2002)

  5. Höhn, O., Gerth, W.: Probabilistic balance monitoring for bipedal robots. Int. J. Robot. Res. 28(2), 245–256 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Huang, Q., Nakamura, Y.: Sensory reflex control for humanoid walking. IEEE Trans. Robot. 21(5), 977–984 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Jalgha, B., Asmar, D., Elhajj, I.: A Hybrid Ankle/Hip Preemptive Falling Scheme for Humanoid Robots. In: 2011 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pp. 1256–1262. IEEE (2011)

  8. Kalyanakrishnan, S., Goswami, A.: Predicting Falls of a Humanoid Robot through Machine Learning. In: IAAI (2010)

  9. Kalyanakrishnan, S., Goswami, A.: Learning to predict humanoid fall. Int. J. Human. Robot. 8(02), 245–273 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Kim, J. J., Kim, Y. J., Lee, J. J.: A Machine Learning Approach to Falling Detection and Avoidance for Biped Robots. In: Sice Conference (2011)

  11. Kudoh, S., Komura, T., Ikeuchi, K.: Stepping motion for a human-like character to maintain balance against large perturbations. In: Proceedings 2006 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2006. ICRA 2006., pp. 2661–2666. IEEE (2006)

  12. Li, Z., Zhou, C., Castano, J., Wang, X., Negrello, F., Tsagarakis, N. G., Caldwell, D. G.: Fall Prediction of Legged Robots Based on Energy State and Its Implication of Balance Augmentation: a Study on the Humanoid. In: 2015 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pp. 5094–5100. IEEE (2015)

  13. Nakaura, S., Sampei, M., et al.: Balance Control Analysis of Humanoid Robot Based on Zmp Feedback Control. In: IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, Vol. 3, pp. 2437–2442. IEEE (2002)

  14. Nicola, O.: Passive Safe Falling of Humanoid Robots. Master’s thesis, Politecnico di MIlano (2019)

  15. Nishio, A., Takahashi, K., Nenchev, D. N.: Balance Control of a Humanoid Robot Based on the Reaction Null Space Method. In: 2006 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, pp. 1996–2001. IEEE (2006)

  16. Ogata, K., Terada, K., Kuniyoshi, Y.: Falling Motion Control for Humanoid Robots while Walking. In: 2007 7Th IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, pp. 306–311. IEEE (2007)

  17. Pratt, J., Carff, J., Drakunov, S., Goswami, A.: Capture Point: a Step Toward Humanoid Push Recovery. In: 2006 6Th IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, pp. 200–207. IEEE (2006)

  18. Samy, V., Kheddar, A.: Falls Control Using Posture Reshaping and Active Compliance. In: IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots (2016)

  19. Ruiz-del Solar, J., Moya, J., Parra-Tsunekawa, I.: Fall Detection and Management in Biped Humanoid Robots. In: 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pp. 3323–3328. IEEE (2010)

  20. Subburaman, R., Kanoulas, D., Muratore, L., Tsagarakis, N. G., Lee, J.: Human inspired fall prediction method for humanoid robots. Robot. Auton. Syst. 121(103), 257 (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Vapnik, V.: Statistical Learning Theory John Wiley&SonsInc (1998)

  22. Wieber, P. B.: On the stability of walking systems. In: Proceedings of the international workshop on humanoid and human friendly robotics (2002)

  23. Xinjilefu, X., Feng, S., Atkeson, C. G.: Center of Mass Estimator for Humanoids and Its Application in Modelling Error Compensation, Fall Detection and Prevention. In: 2015 IEEE-RAS 15Th International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids), pp. 67–73. IEEE (2015)

  24. Yang, T., Zhang, W., Yu, Z., Meng, L., Fu, C., Huang, Q.: Falling Prediction and Recovery Control for a Humanoid Robot. In: 2018 IEEE-RAS 18Th International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids), pp. 1073–1079. IEEE (2018)

  25. Yu, Z, Zhou, Q., Chen, X., Li, Q., Meng, L.: Disturbance rejection for biped walking using zero-moment point variation based on body acceleration. IEEE Trans. Ind. Inf. / Publ. IEEE Ind. Electron. Soc. 15(4) (2018)

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 91748202, 61973039, and 3192029.

Funding

This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 91748202, 62073041, and Beijing Natural Science Foundation under Grant 3192029.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

Tong Wu: Conceived and designed the experiments. Xuechao Chen: Contributed to the conception of the study. Zhangguo Yu: Contributed significantly to analysis and manuscript preparation. Chencheng Dong: Helped perform the analysis with constructive discussions. Zhifa Gao: Performed the data analyses. Qiang Huang: helped perform the analysis with constructive discussions.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zhangguo Yu.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

(MP4 114 MB)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Wu, T., Yu, Z., Chen, X. et al. Falling Prediction based on Machine Learning for Biped Robots. J Intell Robot Syst 103, 68 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-021-01506-y

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-021-01506-y

Keywords

Navigation