Dec 17 2010
Ryuma Niiyama along with his colleagues at the Robot Locomotion Group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is working on developing a robot named ‘Athlete,’ which can run as fast as human beings.
Athlete Robot
Its synthetic musculoskeletal system mimics human muscles found in the hip, lower abdomen and the, leg. In addition, it has a supple flexible prosthetic blade foot resembling artificial running legs. Niiyama focuses on developing an adaptable and active robot with more of a human sprinter's-type pace and less of the mechanical-type gait.
Each leg of the robot has seven sets of artificial muscles, which are activated by pneumatic actuators. The robot also features touch sensors on every foot and its torso includes an inertial measurement unit for identifying the position of the body.
Niiyama along with his research team including Satoshi Nishikawa and Yasuo Kuniyoshi explained about the ongoing research at the IEEE Humanoids 2010 conference, which was held in Nashville.
Currently, they are teaching the Athlete to run. It can make around five steps, at the rate of 3.9 feet per second and then tumbles down.