Thin McKibben Muscles Research Articles

Musculoskeletal lower-limb robot driven by multifilament muscles

This paper presents a redundant musculoskeletal robot using thin McKibben muscles that is based on human anatomy. The purpose of this robot is to achieve motions and characteristics that are very similar to a human body. We use a thin McKibben muscle, which is compliant and flexible, as the actuator of a musculoskeletal robot. Using a bundle of thin McKibben muscles, we develop a multifilament muscle that has characteristics similar to those of human muscles. In contrast, the actuators of conventional musculoskeletal robots are very heavy, not densely attached and have poor backdrivability. Because multifilament muscles are light and can be densely attached, we can attach them to the musculoskeletal robot as skeletal muscle and achieve a redundant system that is equivalent to a human drive mechanism. In this paper, we report a method for fabricating multifilament muscles that imitate various muscles, the development of a lower-limb muscle mechanism for the redundant musculoskeletal robot with thin McKibben muscles and experimental results showing that the proposed musculoskeletal robot achieves humanlike motions that have not yet been reported for other robots.

筋骨格ロボット顎関節の試作研究

By developing a musculoskeletal mastication robot using thin McKibben muscles based on human anatomy, we aim to realize the same motion and characteristics as a human. Conventional mastication robots have a big system and do not have all muscles of human because it is difficult for conventional motors to be attached. Because thin McKibben muscles are small enough to be densely attached, we can overcome these problems by applying them to the musculoskeletal mastication robot as skeletal muscle and can additionally realize a redundant system equivalent to the human drive mechanism. In this paper, we report a prototype of musculoskeletal mastication robot with thin Mckibben muscles.

Snake-Like Robot with Continuously Deformable Body Driven by Thin McKibben Muscles

This paper presents the development of continuously deformable body driven by thin McKibben muscles. The robot structure is made using a thin and long non-rigid plate with six thin muscles at both sides of the body. The system has a redundant mechanism using 12 DOF and can perform various types of motions such as bending and snake-like motion. By regulating the air with different frequencies from on/off valves, the robot successfully demonstrates smooth snake-like motions. Motion capture system was used to further analyzed of the robot's movement.

多繊維構造人工筋における筋繊維間干渉のモデリング

Muscles of creatures have bundle structure consisting of a large number of thin muscle fibers. Using a bundle of thin McKibben muscles, we have developed a multifilament muscle that has characteristics similar to those of human muscles. It is reported that bundling thin McKibben muscles causes physical interaction between muscle fibers with their radical expansion, resulting in the increase of the muscle contraction ratio. It is only confirmed as an experimental result. In this paper, we propose a simple model to reveal this interesting phenomenon. The analytical result successfully expresses the increase in contraction due to bundling thin McKibben muscles.