New robotic legs may lead to more human-like robots

Engineers with the University of Arizona have developed a set of robotic legs that mimic the movements of humans,according to a report from Fox News. Theresa Klein and M. Anthony Lewis, both of the University’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, have described their project in a new paper. The pair’s robot models the “neuromuscular architecture of human walking,” according to their article in the Journal of Neural Engineering.

Their robot has been remarkably successful at achieving simple walking on a treadmill, a feat accomplished by incorporating a new model of neural networking in the limbs. The pair’s robot incorporates a “half-centre” neural network into the robots hips, which operates on simple signals from the limbs to produce the alternating motion of the walking legs. This network, which replicates the nervous network present in human legs, has never before been incorporated into a walking robot.

“We’ve tried various robot systems. But if we build special-purpose robots, when we modify trial procedures or switch to different projects, those robots become useless. Also, developing robots is very time-consuming. So, we wanted to develop a robot that can do what people do, using the same tools people use. That’s why we’ve developed Mahoro,” say scientists.