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Many mechanisms reduce the number of inputs for their target motions by restricting the motions of pairs of joints. This study designs a novel constraint mechanism using a pair of noncircular pulleys and a wire. The wire restricts the motion of the joints to the target motion while enabling a compact structure. We analytically derive the shape of the noncircular pulleys using the desired relation...
Muscle cell actuators are composed of skeletal muscle cells and collagen intercellular matrix. Muscle cells adhere to collagen fibers and contraction along with the direction of collagen fiber. Collagen fibers in a muscle cell actuator transmit contraction force of each muscle cells along longitudinal direction. In order to improve contraction force of muscle cell actuators, it is very important to...
Humans are supposed to use body image representation for realizing adaptive behavior in dynamically changing environment. This paper describes a newly developed muscular-skeletal humanoid robot with local reflexes for approaching how the body structure and the local reflexes contribute to constructing body image from the constructivist viewpoint. The muscular-skeletal humanoid has human-like bone...
Stochastic resonance (SR) is a phenomenon occurring in some nonlinear systems by which a signal provided as input that is too small in magnitude to normally influence the system's output can actually influence the system's output once a non-zero level of noise is provided. SR has been extensively studied both theoretically and experimentally, and noise has been exploited for improving the performance...
This paper proposes a new design of a robotic foot with an oblique mid-foot joint for stable bipedal walking. While a lot of humanoid robots are developed so far, their walking is not as adaptive as that of humans. For realizing such adaptive walking, it is supposed that musculoskeletal structure plays a great roll. Especially, the human's foot is so much different from the robot foot, and is supposed...
The aim of this research is to develop a musculoskeletal robot arm, which has a similar mechanical structure to that of a human, to simply make the robot move similarly to a human based on his/her electromyographic signals. In recent years, many musculoskeletal robots have been developed to show advantages of their bio-inspired designs. In this research, we propose a new perspective of their advantages...
Humans can walk stably and adaptively in the presence of various environmental changes. Their bodies have very complex musculoskeletal structures that contribute to their walking stability and adaptability. In this paper, we focus on the gluteus medius, one of muscles contributing to the support of the pelvis. The gluteus medius supports the pelvis when the leg is in a standing position, but it should...
This paper describes about experimental verifications on the cricket's response against frequent interactions and how it changes in time development. In order to investigate behavior modification, we took the approach to utilize automated interaction systems with a robotic agent and observe the reactions of the male cricket. The robotic agent robes cricket's pheromone and is controlled by designing...
Adaptability of quadruped animals is not solely reached by brain control, but by the interaction between its body, environment, and control. Especially, morphology of the body is supposed to contribute largely to the adaptability. We have tried to understand quadrupedal locomotion by building a bio-inspired quadruped robot named “Pneupard”, which has a feline-like muscular-skeletal structure. In our...
Cyclical locomotion, such as walking, hopping and running, is known to be generated at the spinal cord, guiding human and animal strides over different gaits. Over the last years, many researchers concentrated their study on the origin of such signals, replicating them by either controlling joint angles or torques. In this work, we use a quadruped pneumatic robot to reproduce stable walking on a treadmill...
Vertical ground reaction force(vGRF) has been widely known as a qualitative features of human walking. While a human walks, the vGRF exhibits a double peak profile in which two maximal values appear from the heel contact to the toe off. So far, various studies have been mainly conducted in the field of biomechanics to elucidate the mechanism by which the double peak profile of the vGRF can be generated...
Animals have several peripheral feedback control networks such as stretch reflexes that are supposed to be contributing to stability of their behavior. In this paper, we focus on rolling stability of hopping of a biped robot, and investigate several schemes on an experimental robot for implementing the stretch reflex: no reflex, undelayed and delayed reflex, how they contribute to the stability. For...
Recently, the tendon-driven mechanism with variable joint stiffness has received attention for use in the development of a humanoid robot operated in an uncertain environment with physical contact. In this paper, we propose a mechanism to control the position and joint stiffness of a tendon-driven manipulator independently, using dedicated actuators. This mechanism consists of two parts: a component...
Direct teaching is suitable for generating motions of robot arms which have complex kinematics. So far, we have proposed a direct teaching method specialized for musculoskeletal robot arms actuated by pneumatic artificial muscles (PAMs) based on their pressure and tension information. In the method, it is important to prevent slacks and excessive tensions of PAMs to efficiently obtain the pressure...
This paper describes an automated interaction for triggering the cricket's pheromone behavior by controlling a micro mobile robot based on pose estimation. In our developing systems a micro mobile robot : Ecobe mounted a cricket s head is introduced as a physical agent to interact with the cricket. Both of location of the cricket and mobile robot is estimated by on-line particle filter based color...
In contrast to the high movement adaptability of quadruped animals in many environmental conditions, it is hard for conventional quadruped robots to operate in complex environment conditions. We investigate the adaptability of animals' musculo-skeletal systems, by building a bio-inspired quadruped robot named ”Pneupard” which duplicates a feline musculo-skeletal system. In this study, we built Pneupard's...
Although robotic locomotion have greatly advanced over the past years, the abyss that separates such locomotion from even the simplest animal locomotions prompt us to approach robotic locomotion taking cues from animals. The animal musculoskeletal structure, often ignored by roboticists due to its high redundancy and complexity, might hold the secret for self-stable locomotion observed in bipeds and...
Sarcomere is a functional unit constituting a skeletal muscle, which can only contract and relax in response to changes in Ca+ concentration. In order from the simple to the most complex, it builds structures corresponding to myofibrils, muscle fibers, muscle fiber bundles and the skeletal muscle. This distinctive hierarchical structure of skeletal muscles has been intensively studied in interdisciplinary...
Feline locomotion combines great acrobatic proficiency, unparalleled balance and higher accelerations than other animals. Capable of accelerating from 0 to 100 km h−1 in three seconds, the cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) is still a mystery which intrigues scientists. Aiming for a better understanding of the source of such higher speeds, we develop a biomimetic platform, where musculoskeletal parameters...
In this paper, we describe the development of the quadruped robot “Ken” with the minimalistic and lightweight body design for achieving fast locomotion. We use McKibben pneumatic artificial muscles as actuators, providing high frequency and wide stride motion of limbs, also avoiding problems with overheating. We conducted a preliminary experiment, finding out that the robot can swing its limb over...
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