An anthropomorphic robot torso for imitation: design and experiments

We describe the design of an anthropomorphic robot, combining a binocular head, an arm and a hand, for research in visuomotor coordination and learning by imitation. Our goal was to produce a system resembling the human arm-hand kinematics as closely as possible, while keeping it simple and relatively low-cost. We present mechanical details, kinematics and sensors together with a discussion of the main design options. We present results with human-arm coordination, as well as imitation of a human demonstrator, in real time.