Humanoids SIG Proposal

I would like to propose a new category called “Humanoids” with the following summary:

The Humanoids SIG will work to expand the core ROS capabilities for humanoid robot platforms. Humanoid platforms have bipedal mobility and/or multi-fingered manipulators that have extended capabilities that are not supported by the Navigation and MoveIt pipelines.

Please see Humanoids SIG for the recent discussion on the SIG.

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That sounds reasonable to me. We have traction of several people.

I’d suggest that defining humanoids as things that are not supported by the Navigation or MoveIt pipeline is a little fragile and not really what defines a humanoid. For example I’ve seen demos of bipedal humanoids with multi-fintered manipulators using the navigation stack to walk.

@tfoote That’s a fair suggestion. We should be more explicit about the technology areas within scope.

The focus should be specifically on platform-agnostic bipedal balancing/walking controllers, footstep and multi-contact motion planning frameworks (tightly integrated with those controllers), and whole-body motion planning and control (e.g. walking while manipulating).

According to wikipedia: “humanoid robots have a torso, a head, two arms, and two legs.” Perhaps inclusion of multi-fingered hands would cause the SIG to be too broad.

I was actually suggesting going the other way and being more open in the description. There are many users who may not be using a full humanoid who can improve the discussion as well as benefit from being here. For example the Robonaut developers can significantly contribute to humanoid discussions relating to the torso and dual arm dexterous manipulation despite not having a humanoid base.

Generally until there gets to be too much traffic we encourage not trying to get too fine grained. If a new user comes and gets overwhelmed by too many options or too specific options they will usually give up and either go away or post in a random place the know isn’t best but don’t have time to find the right place.

How about this:

The Humanoids SIG will work to expand the core ROS capabilities for humanoid robot platforms. Areas of interest include motion planning and control for bipedal mobility, dual arm and dexterous manipulation, and coordinated whole body movement.

Thanks for iterating @dkotfis I’ve created the category

and edited the about post:

Everyone please help seed it with content.

For the sake of openness, I propose using “arms” instead of “dual arms”.

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Anyone want to help reboot Humanoids SIG?

There is News: IEEE-RAS Humanoids 2023 in two weeks, in Austin, with about a dozen serious humanoid platforms coming to demo. Will attend and report back what is trending in humanoid controls, and how developers feel about aligning with ROS R&D.

https://2023.ieee-humanoids.org/