Design and Development of a Legged Rat Robot for Studying Animal-Robot Interaction

Author

Laschi, Cecilia ; Mazzolai, Barbara ; Patanè, Francesco ; Mattoli, Virgilio ; Dario, Paolo ; Ishii, Hiroyuki ; Ogura, Motonori ; Kurisu, Shunji ; Komura, Atsushi ; Takanishi, Atsuo

Author_Institution

CRIM & ARTS Lab., Pontedera

fYear

2006

fDate

20-22 Feb. 2006

Firstpage

631

Lastpage

636

Abstract

This paper presents the design and development of a bio-inspired legged rat robot, as an experimental tool for studying social interaction between rats and robots. The rat robot will be used as a platform to clarify basic factors for a relationship between rats and robots based on animal psychology and behavior. The developed rat robot has 4 legs with 3 DOF (2 active and 1 passive) for each leg. The two front legs are designed to perform simple manipulation tasks like pushing levers and buttons. Using our rat robot, an interaction experiment will be conducted to study the capability of the robotic rat to teach the real rat pushing levers

Keywords

behavioural sciences; biomechanics; legged locomotion; robot dynamics; robot kinematics; zoology; animal behavior; animal psychology; animal-robot interaction studies; bio-inspired legged robot; biorobotics; legged rat robot design; legged rat robot development; simple manipulation tasks; Animals; Biological system modeling; Educational robots; Humans; Laboratories; Leg; Legged locomotion; Psychology; Rats; Robot sensing systems;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics, 2006. BioRob 2006. The First IEEE/RAS-EMBS International Conference on

Conference_Location

Pisa

Print_ISBN

1-4244-0040-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/BIOROB.2006.1639160

Filename

1639160