Development of Recent Humanoid Robot

Abstract

Humanoid robot attracts people’s interest due to its intimate shape and many researches are carried out. Especially, there are remarkable advances in the biped walking mechanism over the past decade and finally the running robot was developed. Previously, almost of walking robots used electrical motors as actuator. However, there exist limits for humanoid actuated by motors to mimic human motion. Much power is required to support heavy weight of robot body and motors. The presentation describes the recent design of robot with pneumatic artificial muscle or Electro Active Polymer (EAP) and the relevant control issues as well. The flexibility of the artificial muscle allows the natural motion, but also causes difficulties in its control. Using these new elements, the robot can be designed with bones and muscles as the human body does. For the robot to walk and behave like human, one possible solution is to transfer the human skills to robot. At the end, the future direction of humanoid robot is then pointed out.