Design and development of a compressor-embedded pneumatic-driven musculoskeletal humanoid

Although pneumatic robots are expected to be physically friendly to humans and human-environments, large and heavy air sources and reservoir tanks are a problem to build a self-contained pneumatic robot. This paper proposes a compressor-embedded pneumatic-driven humanoid system consisting of a very small distributed compressors and hollow bones as air reservoir tanks as well as the structural parts. Musculoskeletal systems have possibility of doing dynamic motions using physical elasticity of muscles and tendons, coupled-driven systems of multi-articular muscles, and so on. We suppose a pneumatic driven flexible spine will be contribute to dynamic motions as well as physical adaptivity to environments. This paper presents the concept, design, and implementation of the compressor-embedded pneumatic-driven musculoskeletal humanoid robot named “buEnwa.” We have developed the pneumatic robot which embeds very small compressors and reservoir tanks, and has a multi-joint spine in which physically elastic elements such as rubber bands are attached, and the coupled-driving system of the spine and the shoulder. This paper also shows preliminary experiments of the real robot.