Development of a swimming humanoid robot as an experimental platform of human swimming

Abstract

The objective of this study was to develop a humanoid robot for research of human swimming. In order to replace a swimmer as a subject, a humanoid robot was developed imitating the details of human such as appearance and body properties. To realize the swimming motion based on that of an actual swimmer, a joint imitating the human's scapular retraction was installed and the methodology to realize the swimming motion with that joint was established. The developed robot was simulated to raise feasibility of free swimming in the crawl stroke. In the experiment, the robot was fitted to the simulation model and it realized the crawl stroke successfully. The measured roll angle was about ± 60 degrees and the swimming speed was between 0.2 m/s and 0.24 m/s.