A photo of our Nao robots before their upgrade.

Student projects

Some pictures and movies of the final products of student projects.

• The box lifting project   The goal of this master students project was to let two Naos identify a blue box, walk towards the box, avoid obstacles and together lift the box. This movie shows the result of one of the project groups.
• Tic-tac-toe project   The goal of this bachelor students project was to let a Nao play tic-tac-toe (noughts and crosses) against a human. The Nao had to observe the game state, reason about the possible moves and execute the best move. This movie shows the result of one of the project groups.

PhD projects

• A dynamically stable gait   The goal of this PhD project is to develop a more energy efficient and faster gait for a Nao robot. This movie shows a dynamically stable gait developed in the project. The Nao walks with stretched legs and without stiffness on the ankle joints. The new gait reduces the energy consumption with 41% w.r.t. the standard gait, and does not require an area of support. The gait was developed using simulation with an abstract model consisting of a point mass with telescopic legs. The result of the simulations with abstract model was used to develop a gait controller with eight parameters. The optimal values of the eight parameters were determined using reinforcement learning. The movie shows the resulting gait in the Webots simulator and on a real Nao.

  The absence of an area of support made it possible to let the Nao walk on slopes and uneven terrains. Using the speed and accelerations of the center of mass in x and y, the gait controller adapts the gait parameters during a step. This movie shows the Nao walking over an uneven terrain in the Webots simulator.