Abstract
By developing a redundant musculoskeletal robot using thin McKibben artificial muscles based on human anatomy, we aim to realize the same motion and characteristics as a human. A thin McKibben artificial muscle has compliance and flexibility. To use this for a musculoskeletal robot, we have developed multifilament pneumatic muscle that is a bundle of thin McKibben artificial muscles and has characteristics similar to those of human muscle. On the other hand, the actuators of conventional musculoskeletal robots are very heavy, are not densely attached, and have weak backdrivability. Because multifilament pneumatic muscles are light and can be densely attached, we can overcome these problems by attaching them to the musculoskeletal robot as skeletal muscle and can additionally realize a redundant system equivalent to the human drive mechanism. In this paper, we report a method for fabricating multifilament pneumatic muscles imitating various muscles and the development of an ankle of our robot.
