A New Anthrobot: the Robotic Surrogate 4

Presented is the latest generation of anthrobots, the Robotic Surrogate 4. A survey of the author's four generations began with literal anatomical interpretation evolving into modular, high-efficiency parallel mechanism-based designs. Decades-old records have been unearthed (some only partial) to show the design evolution over 35 years. In many cases, conventional laboratory testing was eschewed for practical real-world testing in countless installations around the world. The final generation replicates human shoulder and spine motion via a new joint architecture. Motors have dual roles as prime movers and structural members forming a new type of high-angulation parallel mechanism applied to shoulders and spine. Commercial off-the-shelf “COTS” components are used throughout to reduce cost and increase reliability. The singularity-free kinematics achieved anticipates future integration with data-driven AI controller methods such as Model Free Predictive Control algorithms (MFPC).