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About

Fuminori Ando is a robotics researcher whose work in the mid-1990s helped lay the groundwork for safe, human-interactive robotic systems, particularly in the domain of rehabilitation engineering. His research centers on rubber artificial muscles as actuators for robotic systems, exploring their unique properties of light weight and mechanical flexibility to enable robots that can operate safely in close proximity to humans. Ando's most influential contribution, a 1995 study on rehabilitation robots using rubber artificial muscles with impedance control (cited 13 times), addressed the growing societal need for automated rehabilitation solutions in an aging population, demonstrating how exercise motion modes could be effectively realized through intelligent control strategies. Building on foundational work characterizing the control performance of rubber artificial muscles (cited 11 times), he also pioneered multi-degree-of-freedom manipulators employing hybrid position and force control schemes, advancing the practical application of compliant actuators in complex robotic tasks. Though working at a time when the field was still nascent, Ando's contributions helped establish rubber artificial muscles as a viable technology for human-assistive robotics, influencing subsequent generations of researchers developing soft and rehabilitation robotics systems.