A Novel Design and Realization of Robot Arm Based on the Principle of Bi-articular Muscles

Abstract

Recently there are many trials to introduce animal characteristics into robots. Conventional robot arm has only actuators similar to mono-articular muscles. Though animal's arm has not only mono-articular muscles but also bi-articular muscles. Existence of bi-articular muscles can give robots remarkable ability to realize various motions without feedback control, which may provide skillfulness and safety like animals. In this paper, we consider some properties of robot arm based on the principle of bi-articular muscles. We suggest a driving mechanism using equilibrium position originated muscular elasticity. This mechanism realize trajectory tracking as feedforward control in simulations. Finally we described our attempt to make a robot arm based on the principle of bi-articular muscles.