Development of prosthesis prototype through industry-government-academia collaboration of automobile driving by tendon-driven humanoids

This study reports the development of a prosthesis prototype using elemental technology of tendon-driven humanoids under an industry-government-academia collaboration. Wire actuation module which is used in tendon-driven humanoids was adopted for the prosthesis. Thanks to the implementation of a joint controller of those humanoids, joints of the prosthesis can be controlled by position or torque. Two switch controllers are used as a control interface of the prosthesis. As basic experiments of the prosthesis, preliminary walk control and automobile pedal operation were conducted to demonstrate the basic performance of the prosthesis. In the pedal operation experiment, the effectiveness of torque control was confirmed based on the comparison between torque and position control. Furthermore, the experiment of automobile driving by pedal operation was successfully conducted in the road-replicated experimental field.