Robotics
Japanese researchers have developed a musculoskeletal robot driven by artificial multifilament muscles. The robot, constructed from a replica human skeleton has the same number of muscles in its legs as a person, and can even perform a basic walking task.
Working with a professional manufacturer, a team of researchers has succeeded in stable mass production of artificial muscle of small diameter. By knitting the small-diameter artificial muscle, and applying it to a musculoskeletal robot, the researchers at the Suzumori Endo Robotics Laboratory at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, were able to create motion characteristics very similar to a human being, including an elementary assisted walking gait.
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The team used the McKibben type of pneumatic powered artificial muscle for the project. McKibben air muscles were invented for orthotics in the 1950s. They have the advantages of being lightweight, easy to fabricate, are self limiting (have a maximum contraction) and have load-length curves similar to human muscle."We expect the technology to be the key to the "creature-ish" robot we've realized and then expanded into new robotics areas, such as "move fabric" for power suits."
The researchers started with an artificial human skeleton that was then covered in bundles of multifilament artificial muscles. As with real human muscles, the multifilament bundles contract and expand when an electrical current is applied, and by controlling different groups of these muscles at different times via a computer, the skeleton’s arms, legs, and head can all be made to move similar to actual human motion.The robot’s legs even contain the same number of muscles that a real human being’s legs use to walk. The motion and mechanics are far from natural, but the creation does look like a first generation prototype of the systems imagined for Sonny and the other NS-5 robots in the movie,I, Robot
.
The application for artificial muscle may extend well beyond creating humanoid robots. "Beyond the traditional "such as machine" robot, we expect the technology to be the key to the "creature-ish" robot we've realized and then expanded into new robotics areas, such as "move fabric" for power suits," write the researchers [translated].
With the aging population of Japan, a big research emphasis revolves around developing assistive robotics technologies like exosuits. The team's work may lead to softer versions of such suits using artificial muscles.
The technology has also been spun off into a commercial venture, S-muscle (Esumasuru).
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