Oluwami Dosunmu-Ogunbi, assistant professor at Ohio Northern University, discusses bipedal robot control, stair climbing, safety, and robotics education with Robot Talk host Claire Asher.
Dosunmu-Ogunbi explains that stairs limit where a robot can place its feet, making foot placement alone a poor guide for balance. Her PhD work developed a mathematical method for using the ankle motor and accounted for the robot’s center of mass rising as it climbs.
Dosunmu-Ogunbi argues that no single robot form suits every job. Drones can pass over ground obstacles but have shorter battery life; wheeled robots are fast and stable but struggle as spaces become cluttered. Humanoids can fit into human spaces and potentially perform human tasks, though balancing them is harder.
She describes control algorithms that can detect a likely fall or power loss and guide a robot toward a safer descent. The conversation also covers diversity in robotics: broader teams can catch gaps in testing, while outreach should include under-resourced schools and avoid placing excessive demands on the few existing role models.
Dosunmu-Ogunbi turned detailed notes from her graduate lab’s Biped Boot Camp into lessons that helped even freshmen build a bipedal robot in simulation. She hopes to expand the material into online lectures, exercises, and workshops, then create a low-cost physical robot from easy-to-find materials.
Dosunmu-Ogunbi sees substantial progress in robot stability over the past five to ten years, but says some home robots still depend heavily on remote operators and perform autonomous tasks awkwardly. She expects robots to handle more tasks independently, while noting that choreographed demonstrations do not show general capability.
Briefs summarise talks and interviews; timestamps open the video at that moment. Claims in a talk are the speaker's own.
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