(December 13, 2010) Japanese researcher Ryuma Niiyama wants to
build a biped robot that runs.
But not like Asimo, whose running
gait is a bit, well, mechanical.
Niiyama wants a robot with the
vigor and agility of a human sprinter.
To do that, he's building a
legged bot that mimics our musculoskeletal system.
He calls his robot Athlete. Each
leg has seven sets of artificial muscles. The sets, each with one to six
pneumatic actuators, correspond to muscles in the human body -- gluteus
maximus, adductor, hamstring, and so forth
To simplify things a bit, the
robot uses prosthetic blades, of the type that double amputees use to run.
And to add a human touch, Niiyama
makes the robot wear a pair of black shorts.