A worm-inspired new spatial hyper-redundant manipulator

In this work a novel spatial hyper-redundant manipulator inspired in the motions of the worms is introduced. The displacement analysis is presented in a semi-closed form solution, whereas the velocity and acceleration analyses are carried out by means of the theory of screws. Among typical applications of most hyper-redundant manipulators, interesting biomechanical applications such as the simulation of the motion of the spine are available for this new artificial worm.

A novel five-degrees-of-freedom decoupled robot

In this work a new nonoverconstrained redundant decoupled robot, free of compound joints, formed from three parallel manipulators, with two moving platforms and provided with six active limbs connected to the fixed platform, called LinceJJP, is presented. Interesting applications such as multi-axis machine tools with parallel kinematic architectures, solar panels, radar antennas, and telescopes are available for this novel spatial mechanism.

A survey of snake-inspired robot designs

Body undulation used by snakes and the physical architecture of a snake body may offer significant benefits over typical legged or wheeled locomotion designs in certain types of scenarios. A large number of research groups have developed snake-inspired robots to exploit these benefits. The purpose of this review is to report different types of snake-inspired robot designs and categorize them based on their main characteristics. For each category, we discuss their relative advantages and disadvantages. This review will assist in familiarizing a newcomer to the field with the existing designs and their distinguishing features. We hope that by studying existing robots, future designers will be able to create new designs by adopting features from successful robots. The review also summarizes the design challenges associated with the further advancement of the field and deploying snake-inspired robots in practice.

A control system for a flexible spine belly-dancing humanoid

Recently, there has been a lot of interest in building anthropomorphic robots. Research on humanoid robotics has focused on the control of manipulators and walking machines. The contributions of the torso towards ordinary movements (such as walking, dancing, attracting mates, and maintaining balance) have been neglected by almost all humanoid robotic researchers. We believe that the next generation of humanoid robots will incorporate a flexible spine in the torso. To meet the challenge of controlling this kind of high-degree-of-freedom robot, a new control architecture is necessary. Inspired by the rhythmic movements commonly exhibited in lamprey locomotion as well as belly dancing, we designed a controller for a simulated belly-dancing robot using the lamprey central pattern generator. Experimental results show that the proposed lamprey central pattern generator module could potentially generate plausible output patterns, which could be used for all the possible spine motions with minimized control parameters. For instance, in the case of planar spine motions, only three input parameters are required. Using our controller, the simulated robot is able to perform complex torso movements commonly seen in belly dancing as well. Our work suggests that the proposed controller can potentially be a suitable controller for a high-degree-of-freedom, flexible spine humanoid robot. Furthermore, it allows us to gain a better understanding of belly dancing by synthesis.