Humanoids14 WS on The Mechatronic Design of Humanoid Robots: Current and Future Trends
Alberto Parmiggiani(1), Masayuki Inaba(2), Nikos Tsagarakis(3)
(1) iCub Facility - Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT)
Via Morego, 30 - 16163 Genoa, Italy
(2) JSK Robotics Laboratory - Department of Mechano-Informatics - University of Tokyo
Eng. Building No. 2 7-3-1, Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan
(3) Advanced Robotics - Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT)
Via Morego, 30 - 16163 Genoa, Italy
Humanoid robot technology has made significant progresses in the past years. Research prototypes are now beginning to demonstrate relevant tasks and significant autonomy levels. Nevertheless to be even more helpful, robots need to improve their capability of interacting physically with humans, and with unstructured environments. This, in turn, poses new challenges in the design of safe, dependable, robust and effective robotic systems.
Because of the high overall complexity, the design of humanoids requires special attention. Indeed scaling platforms from a few degrees of freedom to many, and combining all sub-modules poses significant systems integration problems. Furthermore some humanoids are beginning to equip series elastic actuators and variable impedance actuators, thus adding further complexity. This workshop will present the challenges and potential solutions concerning humanoid robot design. We will discuss the state of the art and focus on new trends, such as compliant actuation, improved design for better maintenance, new actuation principles, and methodologies for defining and evaluating performance requirements.
More information available at: http://www.icub.org/other/humanoids2014-MDHR-workshop.html