Features

Completely open source! (controller framework: mc_rtc, simulator: Choreonoid, sample robot model: JVRC1)
Unified control of bipedal walking, multi-contact locomotion including surface/grasp contacts, and jumping motion.
Easy to switch between centroidal trajectory generation methods implemented in CentroidalControlCollection.
Automated management with CI: Dynamics simulation is run on CI to verify multi-contact motion.

Technical details

This controller integrates the following elements related to humanoid multi-contact motion:

Centroidal trajectory generation based on MPC
Feedback based on centroidal state
Wrench distribution
Damping control in limbs

For more information on the technical details, please see the following papers:

Papers listed in CentroidalControlCollection
Papers listed in ForceControlCollection
M. Murooka, et al., "Centroidal trajectory generation and stabilization based on preview control for humanoid multi-contact motion", IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2022. 10.1109/LRA.2022.3186515 (available here)

Install

Requirements

Compiler supporting C++17
Tested with Ubuntu 20.04 / ROS Noetic and Ubuntu 18.04 / ROS Melodic

Dependencies

This package depends on

mc_rtc

This package also depends on the following packages. However, manual installation is unnecessary when this package is installed using wstool as described in Controller installation.

Preparation

(Skip if ROS is already installed.) Install ROS. See here for details.
$ export ROS_DISTRO=melodic

$ sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://packages.ros.org/ros/ubuntu $(lsb_release -sc) main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros-latest.list'

$ wget http://packages.ros.org/ros.key -O - | sudo apt-key add -

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get install ros-${ROS_DISTRO}-ros-base python-catkin-tools python-rosdep
(Skip if mc_rtc is already installed.) Install mc_rtc. See here for details.
$ curl -1sLf 'https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/mc-rtc/stable/setup.deb.sh' | sudo -E bash

$ sudo apt-get install libmc-rtc-dev mc-rtc-utils mc-state-observation jvrc-choreonoid libcnoid-dev ros-${ROS_DISTRO}-mc-rtc-plugin ros-${ROS_DISTRO}-mc-rtc-rviz-panel libeigen-qld-dev

Controller installation

Setup catkin workspace.
$ mkdir -p ~/ros/ws_mcc/src

$ cd ~/ros/ws_mcc

$ wstool init src

$ wstool set -t src isri-aist/MultiContactController https://github.com/isri-aist/MultiContactController --git -y

$ wstool update -t src isri-aist/MultiContactController

$ wstool merge -t src src/isri-aist/MultiContactController/depends.rosinstall

$ wstool update -t src
Install dependent packages.
$ source /opt/ros/${ROS_DISTRO}/setup.bash

$ rosdep install -y -r --from-paths src --ignore-src
Build a package.
$ catkin build multi_contact_controller -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo -DENABLE_QLD=ON --catkin-make-args all tests
Setup controller
$ mkdir -p ~/.config/mc_rtc/controllers

$ cp ~/ros/ws_mcc/src/isri-aist/MultiContactController/etc/mc_rtc.yaml ~/.config/mc_rtc/mc_rtc.yaml
Setup motion configuration file (optional)
$ roscd multi_contact_controller

$ cd .github/workflows

$ python ./scripts/mergeConfigs.py ./config/MotionSampleField.yaml ./config/DDP.yaml > ~/.config/mc_rtc/controllers/MultiContactController.yaml

Simulation execution

# Terminal 1
$ source ~/ros/ws_mcc/devel/setup.bash
$ roscore
# Terminal 2
$ source ~/ros/ws_mcc/devel/setup.bash
$ roscd multi_contact_controller/cnoid/project/
$ /usr/share/hrpsys/samples/JVRC1/clear-omninames.sh
$ choreonoid MCC_JVRC1_SampleField.cnoid --start-simulation
# Terminal 3
$ source ~/ros/ws_mcc/devel/setup.bash
$ roslaunch multi_contact_controller display.launch

Examples of studies using this controller

M. Murooka, et al., "Whole-body multi-contact motion control for humanoid robots based on distributed tactile sensors", IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2024. 10.1109/LRA.2024.3475052 (available here)
- You can reproduce the simulation experiments with the code in this branch.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/a50d2b41-d93f-4e4c-8ca2-74fba00e194f

M. Benallegue, et al., "Humanoid robot RHP friends: seamless combination of autonomous and teleoperated tasks in a nursing context", IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine, 2025. 10.1109/MRA.2024.3521995

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/a0258202-5369-4de8-bc36-b88adb26812f

A. Demont, et al., "The kinetics observer: a tightly coupled estimator for legged robots", arXiv, 2024. arXiv:2406.13267
M. Tsuru, et al., "Online multi-contact motion replanning for humanoid robots with semantic 3D voxel mapping: ExOctomap", Sensors, 2023. 10.3390/s23218837

Citation

You can cite this work with:

@ARTICLE{PreviewControlForMultiContactMotion,
  author={Murooka, Masaki and Morisawa, Mitsuharu and Kanehiro, Fumio},
  journal={IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters}, 
  title={Centroidal Trajectory Generation and Stabilization Based on Preview Control for Humanoid Multi-Contact Motion}, 
  year={2022},
  volume={7},
  number={3},
  pages={8225-8232},
  doi={10.1109/LRA.2022.3186515}
}