Manual guidance of humanoid robots without force sensors: preliminary experiments with NAO

In this paper we propose a method to perform manual guidance with humanoid robots. Manual guidance is a general model of physical interaction: here we focus on guiding a humanoid by its hands. The proposed technique can be, however, used also for joint object transportation and other tasks implying human-humanoid physical interaction. Using a measure of the Instantaneous Capture Point, we develop an equilibrium-based interaction technique that does not require force/torque or vision sensors. It is, therefore, particularly suitable for low-cost humanoids and toys. The proposed method has been experimentally validated on the small humanoid NAO.