Development of human symbiotic robot: WENDY

Abstract

An objective of this study is to find out design requirements for developing human symbiotic robots, which share working space with humans, and have the ability of carrying out physical, informational, and psychological interaction. The paper mainly describes design strategies of the human symbiotic robots, through the development of a test model of the robots, WENDY (Waseda ENgineering Designed sYmbiont). In order to develop WENDY, mobility and dexterity of a humanoid robot Hadaly-2, which was developed in 1997, are improved on. The performances of WENDY are evaluated by experiments of object transport and egg breaking, which require high level integration of the whole body system.