The Most Advanced Humanoid Robot yet

A human mimetic humanoid.

Share

A group of analysts at the University of Tokyo has made what has all the earmarks of being the most advanced humanoid robot yet—really two of them, one called Kenshiro and the other Kengoro.

As robotics has progressed, most robots have developed to wind up plainly close single-reason machines. Some are intended to paint autos, for instance, others to convey supplies for troopers. However, some are of another class out and out and are called humanoids in light of the fact that their motivation isn’t really to achieve an errand but to imitate the capacities of people.

The Most Advanced Humanoid Robot yet
The humanoid Kengoro. Credit: Asano, Okada, Inaba, Sci. Robot. 2, eaaq0899 (2017)

Keeping that in mind, the specialists in Japan have been refining automated parts to mirror human parts and amassing them to make entire robots that move as nearly as conceivable to the ways people move. For instance, they give their robots rib confines, spines, and pivoting joints. The outcome is shockingly exact development in similar structures.

Kengoro is the most advanced because it is the most recent humanoid the team has built. It can do push-ups, pull-ups backbend, and even hit a badminton birdy. In another interesting first, it also sweats, to a certain extent.

As it has actuators to pull strings intended to copy muscle development, the humanoid gets hot. To counteract overheating, the group ran water tubes through the robots. A portion of the warmth is dispersed by venting steam through minor openings in its aluminum skeleton.

The Most Advanced Humanoid Robot yet
The difference between previous humanoid prototypes, which use conventional design principles, and Kenshiro and Kengoro, which closely mimic human anatomy. Credit: Carla Schaffer / AAAS

Scientists noted that Kengoro has six times the degree of freedom of other humanoids and is able to move more of its parts in human-like ways than any other. It can stand on its toes, for example, or turn its head side to side in ways reminiscent of humans trying to crack their necks.

In their paper published in the journal Science Robotics, the team describes working to make robots that are similar to humans.

Trending