A Comprehensive Software Framework for Complex Locomotion and Manipulation Tasks Applicable to Different Types of Humanoid Robots

While recent advances in approaches for control of humanoid robot systems show promising results, consideration of fully integrated humanoid systems for solving complex tasks, such as disaster response, has only recently gained focus. In this paper, a software framework for humanoid disaster response robots is introduced. It provides newcomers as well as experienced researchers in humanoid robotics a comprehensive system comprising open source packages for locomotion, manipulation, perception, world modeling, behavior control, and operator interaction. The system uses the Robot Operating System (ROS) as a middleware, which has emerged as a de facto standard in robotics research in recent years. The described architecture and components allow for flexible interaction between operator(s) and robot from teleoperation to remotely supervised autonomous operation while considering bandwidth constraints. The components are self-contained and can be used either in combination with others or standalone. They have been developed and evaluated during participation in the DARPA Robotics Challenge, and their use for different tasks and parts of this competition are described.