Researchers at the Suzumori Endo Robotics Laboratory at the Tokyo Institute of Technology have a different take on robotics in the form of a musculoskeletal robot that moves like a human.
Essentially, a fake skeleton covered in a bunch of cables, the musculoskeletal robot is powered by artificial multifilament muscles that function like real human muscles when electrical current flows through them.
Basically, the fake muscles can contract and expand similar to a real human’s movements thanks to the electrical current, even enabling the skeleton’s head to move around realistically.
At the moment, the Suzumori Endo humanoid can’t support itself, but the robot’s legs do contain the exact same number of muscles that a real human being’s legs use to walk.
The researchers hope that as technology advances and the musculoskeletal robot progresses, it will eventually be able to walk on its own and self-balance, similar to the ATLAS robot.
