BIOMIMETIC MUSCULOSKELETAL HUMANOID ROBOT WITH HUMAN MOVEMENT CAPABILITIES:

Lower-limb humanoid robot actuated by Hydro Muscles, with an anatomical placement of muscles, executes a gait cycle with nearly biological trajectories.

Abstract:

Towards a goal of achieving human movement capabilities in a legged apparatus, a 12 actuated degree of freedom humanoid legged robot with several highly biomimetic features was designed, built, and tested. The robot incorporates an anatomically accurate model of the human skeletal system with bone geometry exactly matching that of a human, as well as with ligament-like connections allowing only a biologically realistic range of motion. The robot also incorporates musculature in the form of Hydro Muscles, a soft robotic actuator that shows superior strain and efficiency to other commonly used artificial muscles such as the McKibben Muscle, which cannot achieve the biologically realistic strains of human muscles that Hydro Muscles can. The performance of 12 Hydro Muscles were modeled to match mass scaled actuation of human muscles on a lower limb skeletal model to create a biologically authentic walking gait. The lightly tethered robot gait was tested using a treadmill moving at a constant pace of 0.28 m/s. The robot stride length was 0.78 m in average. Biological gait data was captured by advanced video analysis to compare the joint trajectories with biological gait data for normal posture, forward posture, and toe walking. Overall, the robot was able to emulate biological trajectories in walking. Future work will focus on more refined range of motion and balance control. Further extensions of this project will explore the potential of this robot for clinical, prosthetic, orthotic, military defense, and other practical applications.