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Actuator Arrangement and Motion Form of Vertebrate Leg
Toru Oshima* Tomohiko Fujikawa** and Mina on Kumamoto***
*Department of Mechanical Systems Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Toyama Prefectural University, Kurogawa 5180, Kosugi, Toyama, 939-0398, Japan
**Department of Electronic Control Engineering, Toyama National College of Maritime Technology, Ebie Neriya 1-2, Shinminato, Toyama, 933-0293, Japan
***Laboratories of Image Information Science and Technology, Hongo 5-26-4, Bunkyo, Tokyo, 113-0033, Japan
Received:February 18, 2002Accepted:March 29, 2002Published:June 20, 2002
Keywords:vertebrate, motion form, muscular arrangement, force control, stiffness control
Abstract
We clarified the relationship between the arrangement and the motion of actuators (muscles), corresponding to the drive system for vertebrate legs, including those of the human, planning to apply our results to robot drive systems. To do so, we anatomically compared muscular arrangements of plantigrade animals, such as humans and gorillas, and unguligrade animals, such as horses and deers,and amphibious jumping vertebrates, such as frogs. We analytically clarified distinctive functional features at the link end constituted by the differences in muscular arrangement by a robotic engineering method with a 2-joint link model. We found that muscular arrangement features are greatly involved in output and stiffness at the link end and reflect features of motion in each group of animals. We studied feasible application of the drive system by verifying its effects in muscular arrangement to make the drive system practical.
Cite this article as:T. Fujikawa and M. Kumamoto, “Actuator Arrangement and Motion Form of Vertebrate Leg,” J. Robot. Mechatron., Vol.14 No.3, pp. 262-269, 2002.Data files:
Copyright© 2002 by Fuji Technology Press Ltd. and Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers. All right reserved.
