# Topics > Robotics > Humanoids >  TORO, torque controlled humanoid robot, Robotics and Mechatronics Center, Cologne, Germany

## Airicist

Developer - Robotics and Mechatronics Center 

Helmholtz Young Investigators Group (NG808) 
for „Dynamic Control of Legged Humanoid Robots”

"The robot is complete – arms and hands for TORO, the walking machine"

March 25, 2013

"Overview of the torque-controlled humanoid robot TORO"

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## Airicist

DLR-Biped with prototype upper body

Published on Jul 1, 2013

"Introducing TORO, Germany's new humanoid robot"
This is the German Aerospace Center's (DLR) humanoid robot with a prototype upper body.

by Jason Falconer
July 1, 2013

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## Airicist

TORO, DLR's two-legged humanoid robot 

Published on May 20, 2014




> DLR's TORO (short for TOrque controlled humanoid RObot - 'Justin's little brother') making a little present to @marco_t ... filmed at ESA/DLR/BDLI Space Pavilion at ILA Berlin Air Show on 20 May 2014, 11:40 CEST.

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## Airicist

Control Applications of TORO - a Torque Controlled Humanoid Robot 

Published on Apr 7, 2015




> This video presents an overview of the hardware and the control applications of the TOrque-controlled humanoid RObot TORO developed at DLR. Applications include: compliant behavior for the whole robot, energy-based limit cycle controller for hand shaking, walking on flat ground, balancing on a rockerboard, and multi-contact whole-body control.

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## Airicist

Daniel Leidner and Alexander Dietrich, "Towards Intelligent Compliant Service Robots"

Published on Sep 21, 2015




> In Proc. of the Twenty-Ninth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence
> AAAI Video Competition, Nominated for Best Video Award
> 
> Compliant manipulation is one of the key aspects for future service robots in domestic and human environments. In this video we demonstrate our hybrid reasoning framework capable of planning and executing compliant whole-body manipulation tasks. A modular concept allows to combine robot capabilities together with object knowledge to parameterize a task symbolically and geometrically w.r.t. the actual state of the environment. A whole-body impedance control architecture is utilized to exert forces with various tools in order to solve everyday cleaning tasks. The framework is implemented on the humanoid robot Rollin' Justin and validated in three experiments which represent typical household chores: wiping a window, cleaning a mug, and sweeping the floor with a broom.

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## Airicist

Multi-Contact balancing for torque-controlled humanoid robots

Published on Nov 9, 2016




> Humanoid robots are meant to take over task which are dangerous or too physically demanding for humans. To accomplish this, the robot must be able to balance robustly in challenging terrain as e.g. stairs, industrial ladders, or debris. In order to gain more robustness, the robot can use multiple contacts (not only the feet but also the hands) to support itself. This video contains several experiments with the humanoid robot TORO developed by DLR, which demonstrates the performance and robustness of a passivity-based balancing controller utilizing multiple contacts. 
> An in-depth discussion of the method is presented in the paper ‘Passivity-Based Whole-Body Balancing for Torque-Controlled Humanoid Robots in Multi-Contact Scenarios’, IJRR 2016. DOI: 10.1177/0278364916653815

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## Airicist

AeroExpo e-magazine | Meet TORO, the new robot for aeronautics

Published on May 14, 2018

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## Airicist

Multi-contact balancing of humanoid robots in confined spaces: utilizing knee contacts

Published on Aug 9, 2018




> Introducing humanoid robots in areas where space is limited, for example in search-and-rescue scenarios or industrial manufacturing, represents a huge challenge, especially when the environment is cluttered and unknown. The robot should be capable of utilizing multiple contact points distributed across the entire body and not just its feet and hands. Extra contacts on the whole body, for instance including the knees and elbows, enable the robot to increase its agility and robustness by enhancing the support polygon. This paper applies our passivity-based approach for hierarchical whole-body control including balancing to scenarios involving contacts distributed all over the body of the robot as required in confined spaces. The approach is experimentally validated on the torque-controlled humanoid robot TORO to demonstrate the general applicability of the presented framework.
> An in-depth discussion of the method is presented in the paper ‘Multi-Contact Balancing of Humanoid Robots in Confined Spaces: Utilizing Knee Contacts’, IROS 2017. DOI: 10.1109/IROS.2017.8202227

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## Airicist

Dynamic walking on uneven, rough, or compliant terrain

Oct 22, 2019




> One of the defining characteristics of legged robots in general (and humanoid robots in particular) is the ability of walking on various types of terrain. In this video, we show our humanoid robot TORO walking dynamically over uneven (on grass outside the lab), rough (large gravel), and compliant terrain (a soft gym mattress). The robot can maintain its balance, even when the ground shifts rapidly under foot, such as when walking over gravel. This behaviour showcases the torque-control capability of quickly adapting the contact forces compared to position control methods.
> An in-depth discussion of the current implementation is presented in the paper "Dynamic Walking on Compliant and Uneven Terrain using DCM and Passivity-based Whole-body Control".

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