Introduction

Abstract

The development of humanoid robots is one of the most challenging research fields within robotics. When encountering such a humanoid for the first time, one is fascinated by its human-like appearance and mechanical complexity in first place. Already children are often allured by little toy humanoids when walking through a toy store. From many science-fiction movies one might even get the impression that building robots with human-like appearance, behavior, and abilities is a goal not far away. However, not until one tries to make such a robot to autonomously do something useful one starts to understand that it is a very long way from a machine to a humanoid with at least some human-like abilities.