stevebattle:ECCE1 by The Robot Studio and the ECCEROBOT Project, France (2009). ECCE1 is an anthropo
stevebattle:ECCE1 by The Robot Studio and the ECCEROBOT Project, France (2009). ECCE1 is an anthropomimetic humanoid upper torso, the first of the ECCEROBOT (Embodied Cognition in a Compliantly Engineered Robot) series. Anthropomimetic robots are closely modelled on the bones, joints, muscles, and tendons of the human body. This approach enables comparisons of robot and human performance at the mechanical, behavioural and cognitive levels. Instead of driving joints directly with electric motors, it uses artificial muscles attached to plastic bones via elastic tendons. During muscle contraction a force exerted on the anchor points of the muscle causes movement of the limb. Muscles can only exert a pull, so must be arranged antagonistically - pulling in opposite directions. This means that it needs twice as many actuators as it has degrees of freedom. The skeleton is constructed by heating thermoplastic to 60C, and then moulding it by hand into the desired bone shape. -- source link