A Novel 3 DOFs Waist Mechanism for Humanoid Robots: Kinematic Analysis and Motion Simulation

Abstract

© 2019, Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The paper presents the kinematic analysis and motion simulation of the waist mechanism for humanoid robots. The waist mechanism with total 3 DOFs is proposed. It consists of two interconnected spatial mechanisms that allow movements around the pitch and roll axes, while the third is planar mechanism for movements around the yaw axis. Due to the structure of links, spatial mechanisms can function independently and/or simultaneously. By kinematic analysis of the waist mechanism, the kinematic parameters are defined and based on that, a kinematic model is formed. Motion simulation of the waist mechanism for initial movements of flexion, extension, lateral flexion and rotation is performed. For the corresponding movement and range of motion, the waist mechanism reaches the kinematic parameters of the human lumbar spine region, which was the basic requirement for realization.