A flexible spine human-form robot-development and control of the posture of the spine

The development of a robot which has a flexible spine is presented. By embedding a multi-DOF (degree of freedom) soft structure into a robot body as a spine, the robot can increase its ability to absorb shock and the ability to work in various environments such as narrow places or human fields, and its motion could be more natural. The developed full-body human-form robot has a five-jointed flexible spine. Each joint (vertebra) has 3 DOFs. Between each two vertebrae is a "disk" made of silicone rubber. The spine is controlled by eight tendons, whose tensions can be controlled using tension-sensors and locally distributed microcontrollers. The paper describes the development of the flexible spine and the control of the posture of the spine and body.