Development of Small-Sized Swimming Humanoids (P203)

Abstract

The primary objective of this study is to develop robots for research of the human swimming. In order to address this objective, two small-sized prototype models of the swimming humanoids were developed and evaluated. Both of the two developed humanoids have ten RC servo motors for the upper limbs, a plastic bottle for abdominal part, and floats for the head and lower limbs. In addition, the humanoids are remotely controlled from the ground via Bluetooth, and can perform the crawl stroke. The stature of the first model was 0.53m. From the swimming experiment of the first model in a pool, it was found that the buoyancy of the humanoid was not in balance. Solving the problem for the buoyancy balance, the improved second model was constructed. It has the structure basically the same as the first model although its stature becomes 0.79m. In the swimming experiment of the second model, two swimming forms and several stroke cycles are tested, and the swimming movement was measured by a three-dimensional motion analysis system. From the experiment, the swimming speed and the nondimensional stroke length were found to be 0.20∼0.35 m/s and 1.02∼1.31, respectively. Since the stroke length over 1.0 is equivalent with the competitive swimming of human, it indicates the possibility of the swimming humanoid.