Muscle geometric topology estimation based on muscle length - joint angle nonlinearity in tendon-driven robot systems

Many tendon-driven systems have been developed to realize more natural and various motions, or to lighten the end of a robot arm. However, the control based on the geometrical model, one of control methods the main of recent, is not easy for tendon-driven robots because more information is necessary, for instance muscle layout etc. This paper describes a muscle layout estimation methods for tendon-driven robots. This method based on nonlinearity between relative displacement of muscle length and relative displacement of joint angle. Furthermore, the confirmatory experiment was done using the simulator and the real musculo-skeletal humanoid.