Design and Simulation of a Cable-Driven Vertebra-Based Humanoid Torso

Abstract

Artificial torso is a fundamental part of humanoid robots with special features for mimicking human performance. In this paper, a novel torso design is presented with cable-driven vertebra-based solution, as inspired by human anatomy. Whereas the anatomy of the human torso and their joints are indeed very complex, a formulation for basic functioning of the humanoid torso has been developed. The structure is introduced by describing its main characteristics and performance starting from its kinematics up to design constrains. The design is presented with numerical results of dynamic simulation and FEM analysis with the aim of testing the feasibility of the proposed solution and characterizing its operation performance.