Pneuborn Robots Are Creepy, Crawling Robo-Babies

The Pneuborn-7II is what a 7-month old infant would look like if it were a robot.

Sometimes I don’t know what’s worse: robots with a face, or robots without one.

Especially when it’s crawling towards you crying “ma-ma!” as it rises up to standing height on its spindly metallic legs.

Researchers at Japan’s Hosoda Laboratory developed Pneuborn-7ll and Pneuborn-13, a pair of musculoskeletal infant robots. Their names come from the fact that they use pneumatic muscles as actuators (and in case you were wondering, they don’t actually say “ma-ma!”, as far as I know).

Pneuborn-7ll is the size of a 7-month old child, weighing in at 11.9 lbs and measuring 31 inches tall. It was developed to “study the relationship between motor development and embodiment.” Pneuborn-7ll is completely autonomous, and has 19 pneumatic muscles, including a spine with three pitch and yaw joints. An algorithm based on central pattern generators (CPGs) was optimized for the robot to crawl without actual artificial intelligence or advanced sensors.

Pneuborn-13 is Pneuborn-7ll’s 13-month old older brother, designed so researchers can study the effect of bipedal walking on the musculoskeletal structure. It’s 29.5 inches tall and weighs a scant 8.5 lbs. Pneuborn-13 is also autonomous, but has only 18 pneumatic muscles, primarily concentrated around the ankle, knee and hip joints. It lacks a spinal column, but can still manage to get into a standing position and perform walking motions.

Unfortunately, videos haven’t been posted of the duo in action yet, but we can expect them to be uploaded sometime soon. In the meantime, you can use your imagination to picture how these Pneuborns move.

Pneuborn-7II & Pneuborn-13 [Plastic Pals via CrunchGear]

Full story at http://feeds.wired.com/~r/GearFactor/~3/dZgW26pqFtg/