Japanese build bio-robot with muscles, bones

This bio-inspired robot may yet be the closest that scientists can get to the real thing.

 

Meet Kenshiro, the new human-like musculo-skeletal robot built by researchers at the University of Tokyo, IEEE.org reported.  

 

"Kenshiro mimics the body of the average Japanese 12-year-old male, standing at 158 centimeters tall and weighing 50 kilograms. Kenshiro’s body mirrors almost all the major muscles in a human, with 160 pulley-like 'muscles,' 50 in the legs, 76 in the trunk, 12 in the shoulder, and 22 in the neck," it said.

 

It added Kenshiro the most muscles of any other bio-inspired humanoids so far.

 

Kenshiro, revealed at the Humanoids conference this month, is an upgrade of sorts from the Kojiro robot of 2010, at least in terms of the number of muscles and motors.

 

These make Kenshiro’s underlying structure "the closest to a human's form so far," IEEE.org added.

 

Getting weight right

 

Yuto Nakanishi, the head of the project, said getting the robot’s weight right is a tricky problem.

 

Nakanishi said Kenzoh, Kenshiro's tendon-driven upper-body ancestor, weighed 45 kg just for the upper body, meaning a full-body Kenzoh could weigh as much as 100 kg.

 

Because of this, the researchers decided to design a robot with the same weight ratios of a human.

 

Also, the researchers tried to mimic the muscle torque and joint speeds, giving Kenshiro a total power output five times greater than Kojiro’s.

 

"Kenshiro can get almost the same amount of joint torque as a human, with joint angular speed not quite at human level, at 70-100 degrees per second. It’s a trade-off in weight and power: bigger and stronger motors are often heavier," IEEE.org said.

 

Muscles, bones

 

Kenshiro uses a system of pulley-like muscles, but this time, the researchers used planar muscles instead of single point-to-point muscles.

 

"These flat and wide muscles use only one motor and are much more stable. All in all, these motors give Kenshiro 64 degrees of freedom (except for the hands): 13 in the neck, 13 in each arm, 7 in each leg, and 11 in the spine," IEEE.org said.

 

Kenshiro's aluminum bones are sturdier than previous 3D printed bones, and its knee-joints include imitations of cruciate ligaments and a floating patella.  

 

Meanwhile, Nakanishi is focusing his energies on a robotics start-up called SCHAFT Inc. to participate in the DARPA Robotics Challenge. — TJD, GMA News