Japanese university team reveals "speedy ambulatory robot"

Japanese university team reveals "speedy ambulatory robot"

Keywords: Robots, Walking

A robot capable of walking on two feet as fast as a human is about to be put on the market by a research team at the Yokohama National University. Walking speed is still but one-third of a human, but the team believes its development can move at 1m per second, about the same as a person.

Professor Atsuo Kawamura with his group, conducting computer simulations to enable the robot to move at high speed, points out that the greatest challenge for raising the speed factor is:

Rotatory power, which rises when the leg is swung forward. When the right leg moves forward, rotatory power works counterclockwise. But, the faster the speed,the greater this rotatory power, the robot being unable to support itself with just the friction force of the soles of its feet.

The group has closely studied the movement of walking humans who balance themselves by automatically swinging their arms, and they found the robot could remain stable with the arm-swings.

The computer simulation showed that when the robot did not swing its arms, it walked seven steps at a speed of 9m per second before falling and three steps at 1.0m per second, yet when the robot did swing its arms, it could walk "excessively"at 1.0m per second without tumbling. Based on data generated by the simulation of generation, Kawamura's team conducted a test using a robot 120cm tall and weighing 20kg, having a foot size 12cm wide, 25cm long.

As of now, this robot can walk at 0.3m per second without falling, but the professor maintains the robot "will be able to walk as fast as a human if the arm-swing is controlled precisely based on data gained from sensors attached to the soles of the feet and the trunk".