Design and development of the biped prototype ROBIAN

In order to study the human being locomotion system, a multi-degrees of freedom (DOFs) biped prototype equipped with flexible feet, which is named ROBIAN, is developed. In this paper, the conceptual design of the biped prototype ROBIAN is discussed. The features of ROBIAN include: (1) parallel mechanism at the hip and the ankle, (2) modular design, and (3) 1-DOF active/passive joint between the heel and the toe. ROBIAN has 18-DOFs in total: 6-DOFs for each leg, 1-DOF passive or active joint for each foot and 4-DOFs for the upper limb. One of the major application of ROBIAN is the efficient development of a real testbed of active/passive prosthesis for the disabled.