Chinese engineers and roboticists have developed a new type of limb for humanoid robots, similar in design to human leg bones. This feature allows the robot to swim and walk in shallow water and can increase or decrease in size, researchers wrote in a journal article. Scientific progress.
“The bone structure of the human leg inspired us to create lightweight robotic limbs that weigh only 350 grams but can change length about three times, withstand heavy loads and remain stable in a variety of conditions. Thanks to these limbs, soft robots can swim, walk on water and even crawl on land thousands of times faster than other similar machines,” the researchers wrote.
As noted by a group of scientists led by Wang Hongqiang, associate professor at Southern University of Science and Technology (China), hundreds of science and engineering groups around the world are currently working to create increasingly advanced humanoid robots capable of walking, running and performing other movements almost like humans. All these machines are still significantly inferior to humans in flexibility and mobility.
According to scientists, one of the reasons for this is because the bones of their limbs have a structure unlike the bones of humans and other vertebrates, which have very high strength, low mass, and still retain the ability to grow and change shape if necessary. Guided by this idea, Chinese scientists created “bones for robots” capable of reproducing the main structural elements of real bones.
In particular, like inside real bones, there is a hollow cavity in the center. It is made of polymer material and covered with elastic fibers to store energy. If necessary, it will be filled with gas and stretched so that the robot's limbs can increase or decrease in length. This chamber is surrounded by a durable loom and carbon fiber guide pins, allowing the limb to remain stable under various deformations and during movement.
Using these limbs, scientists assembled a humanoid robot from soft materials weighing only 4.5 kg. The machine is capable of tripling its height, shortening by 36% or changing its width by 60% when moving through narrow spaces, as well as walking relatively quickly in shallow water, swimming, crawling and playing soccer. Scientists concluded that in the future, this will help create humanoid robots capable of working in human-like conditions and environments.
