The Infona portal uses cookies, i.e. strings of text saved by a browser on the user's device. The portal can access those files and use them to remember the user's data, such as their chosen settings (screen view, interface language, etc.), or their login data. By using the Infona portal the user accepts automatic saving and using this information for portal operation purposes. More information on the subject can be found in the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. By closing this window the user confirms that they have read the information on cookie usage, and they accept the privacy policy and the way cookies are used by the portal. You can change the cookie settings in your browser.
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...
This study proposes the design of electromyography (EMG)-based force feedback controller which explicitly considers human-robot interaction for the exoskeletal assistive robot. Conventional approaches have been only consider one-directional mapping from EMG to control input for assistive robot control. However, EMG and force generated by the assistive robot interfere each other, e.g., amplitude of...
The soft robotics approach is widely considered to enable human-friendly robots which are able to work in our future homes and factories. Furthermore, achieving the smooth and natural movements of humans has become a hot topic in robotics, especially when robots are supposed to work in close proximity to humans. The anthropomimetic principle aims at mimicking not only the outside but also the inner...
This paper presents a control algorithm to achieve crawling locomotion for a multi-arm robotic system inspired by live octopuses. First the paper introduces a dynamic model of a continuum arm. The model accounts for the key features relevant to crawling locomotion, namely longitudinal muscles and suckers that provide force interaction with the surrounding environment. This single arm model is then...
The essential component of legged locomotion is control of the ground reaction force. To understand the role of the musculoskeletal body in dynamic locomotion, we investigate bipedal running using a musculoskeletal “Athlete Robot”. The configuration of the muscles in the robot is compatible with the human. The spring-like property of the human lower leg during running is modeled as an elastic blade...
When dealing with the design of robotic fingers driven by tendons, one can be inspired by the human index finger tendon distribution. The structure of the designed robot finger has to minimize the number of tendons required without sacrificing either the actuated degree of freedom or the maximal output force produced at the fingertip. In this paper, a biomechanical study of the index finger under...
This paper describes the development of a robot simulating a lancelet, a chordate often treated as a surrogate for the ancestor of the vertebrate. Although a lancelet has primitive neural circuits, it accomplishes dexterous swimming motion. Hence this study attempts to imitate the swimming motion with simple control architecture and investigate the principle of motion control. The control principle...
This paper presents a novel formula describing traveling body wave in fish swimming, offering an enhanced understanding of the locomotion and body shape of those fish swimming by body and/or caudal fin (BCF) movements. The formula is mainly determined by the linear density of the fish, under the constraint that the center of mass of the fish is fixed on the axis along the swimming direction. Further,...
Set the date range to filter the displayed results. You can set a starting date, ending date or both. You can enter the dates manually or choose them from the calendar.