This paper presents a redundant musculoskeletal robot using thin McKibben muscles that is based on human anatomy. The purpose of this robot is to achieve motions and characteristics that are very similar to a human body. We use a thin McKibben muscle, which is compliant and flexible, as the actuator of a musculoskeletal robot. Using a bundle of thin McKibben muscles, we develop a multifilament muscle that has characteristics similar to those of human muscles. In contrast, the actuators of conventional musculoskeletal robots are very heavy, not densely attached and have poor backdrivability. Because multifilament muscles are light and can be densely attached, we can attach them to the musculoskeletal robot as skeletal muscle and achieve a redundant system that is equivalent to a human drive mechanism. In this paper, we report a method for fabricating multifilament muscles that imitate various muscles, the development of a lower-limb muscle mechanism for the redundant musculoskeletal robot with thin McKibben muscles and experimental results showing that the proposed musculoskeletal robot achieves humanlike motions that have not yet been reported for other robots.

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As part of our research on developing different types of Giacometti robots, the potential of a very long, very light, and very simple robot arm with a balloon body is discussed in this paper. Although this robot arm is not suitable for precise positioning, rapid motion, and high load capacity, which are the aspects most conventional robots focus on, it is designed for very specific purposes such as inspection using a small camera at its tip and is designed to be essentially safe even if it falls down or hits an object. This robot arm is realized using helium-filled balloon bodies and thin pneumatic muscles. The arm achieves self-weight compensation, and the possibility of designing a very long arm is confirmed theoretically and experimentally. A prototype of a 7-m-long cantilever arm is designed, developed, and tested.

This paper proposes a super long reach articulated manipulator with gravity compensation using thrusters. The proposed manipulator has (1) ground fixed base, (2) tethers for power and information transmission, (3) articulated links connected by joints, and (4) thruster(s) for weight compensation. Because of weight compensation by thruster(s), the proposed manipulator can be super long reach due to free from gravity. After an experiment using 1 D.O.F experimental setup for principle confirmation, and dynamics numerical simulation, an experimental prototype consisted of passive four-bar linkages, active yaw joints and paired counter-rotating propellers, was developed. We successfully demonstrated the proposed concept by three dimensional motions controlled by thrusters and yaw joints.