Development of a humanoid robot for underwater use

2013

J. Abmech

Abstract-In this study, the swimming humanoid robot SWUMANOID for research of human swimming was developed. It was half the size of a real human and had the same body proportions and appearance; mass distribution was considered, as well. It was actuated by 20 motors, which were waterproofed and compactly designed. Swimming motions were determined based on human swimming movements. To realize the swimming arm stroke, a joint imitating the human's scapular retraction was installed and the methodology to realize the swimming motion with that joint was established. Finally, the efficiency of the design was validated by simulation and representatively, the crawl stroke was successfully realized in the water tank.

Section: Waterproofingmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…Oya and Suzuki proposed a small diver type humanoid robot to estimate water depth by the robot's behavior [8]. Li et al developed a swimming robot using the flutter kick for underwater use [9]. Nakashima and Kobayashi developed smallsized swimming humanoids [10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of a Swimming Humanoid robot for Research of Human Swimming

2013

J. Abmech

“…Oya and Suzuki proposed a small diver type humanoid robot to estimate water depth by robot's behavior [6]. Li et al developed a swimming robot using the flutter kick for underwater use [7]. Nakashima Kobayashi developed robots for research on human swimming [8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of the upper body of an underwater humanoid robot for research of unsteady fluid forces acting on a swimmer

2012 4th IEEE RAS &Amp; EMBS International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (BioRob)

2012

The primary objective of this study was to develop a robot for research of human swimming. In order to address this objective, we developed the upper body of an underwater humanoid robot and realized the human swimming stroke. The developed humanoid robot had the same body proportions and appearance at half the size of a real human. The upper limbs were actuated by 12 motors, and one motor was installed for the waist. The motor case and gear housing were newly designed for waterproofing and space saving. Each arm had six degrees of freedom; four were for the shoulder and two were for the elbow. On the shoulder, we installed additional joints imitating human's scapular retraction to avoid singularities during the swimming stroke. We demonstrated the importance of an additional joint by realizing the crawl stroke arm motion, which is the most complicated of the four strokes.

“…Oya and Suzuki proposed diver type small humanoid robot to estimate water depth by robot's behavior [6]. Li et al developed a swimming humanoid robot with flutter kick [7]. Nakashima and Kobayashi developed small swimming humanoid robot for research of the human swimming [8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

1A2-B05 Realization of Free Swimming in the Crawl Stroke by a Humanoid Robot(Bio-Mimetics and Bio-Mechatronics (2))

2013

Robomech

A humanoid robot has been studied for several decades but few studies have been conducted to use a humanoid robot in the water. In order to extend application area of a humanoid robot, we aim to develop a swimming humanoid robot and realize free swimming by the robot. In this study, we remodeled the upper body of a swimming humanoid robot, which has been developed by authors, to fit free swimming test and the robot performed the crawl stroke in the swimming pool. In the experiment, the standard crawl stroke was tested at several stroke cycles. The swimming movement was filmed and rolling angular velocity was measured by a gyro sensor. From the experiment, the robot could perform the crawl stroke at 2.4 s cycles and went forward at about 0.25 m/s speed. The roll angle displacement during the crawl stroke was calculated about ± 55 degrees and it is almost coincident with the result of actual swimmers.