3
Introduction to Biologically Inspired Robotics
players by Arab scholar and craftsman Al-Jazari in the thirteenth century
and mechanical puppets or dolls such as the well-known Japanese karakuri
ningyo in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Probably the most famous
example is the tremendous effort made to development of flying machines in
the early twentieth century.
Designing robots that mimic animals and other living creatures dates back
to the 1940s and 1950s (Beer 2009). The robotic tortoises developed by W.
Gray Walter (Walter 1963) are most closely related to biologically inspired
robotics. The tortoises are driven by motorized wheels and equipped with a
light sensor and touch sensor. They are mobile robots indeed! When talking
about the history of biomimetic robotics, it is necessary to note the work of
Ichiro Kato’s group at Waseda University in the early 1970s on design and
control of biped robots (http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanoid_robot).
They developed the first biped robot, WaBOT-1, in 1973 and a musician
robot that played the piano in 1984. Their work laid the foundation for the
research and development of present-day humanoid robots. Since the early
1980s, inspired by motion of snakes and spiders, Hirose and his group have
designed several snake robots and legged robots (Hirose and Yamda 2009).
Figure 1.2 shows the latest design of a snake robot created at the Shenyang
Institute of Automation (China; Z. Liu et al. 2006). In 1997, Honda presented
the first humanoid robot, Asimo, that truly has a humanoid appearance
and integrates computer, control, sensing systems, power, and into a single
stand-alone body (Hirai 1997). Since then, several humanoid robots, such as
the Sony humanoid robot QRIO (Movellan et al. 2004), the AIST humanoid
robot HRP-2 (Kaneko et al. 2004; Figure 1.1), and the BIT humanoid robot
FIGURE 1.2
Robotic snake developed by Z. Liu et al. (2006) at the Shenyang Institute of Automation and
Ritsumeikan University.
Introduction to Biologically Inspired Robotics
players by Arab scholar and craftsman Al-Jazari in the thirteenth century
and mechanical puppets or dolls such as the well-known Japanese karakuri
ningyo in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Probably the most famous
example is the tremendous effort made to development of flying machines in
the early twentieth century.
Designing robots that mimic animals and other living creatures dates back
to the 1940s and 1950s (Beer 2009). The robotic tortoises developed by W.
Gray Walter (Walter 1963) are most closely related to biologically inspired
robotics. The tortoises are driven by motorized wheels and equipped with a
light sensor and touch sensor. They are mobile robots indeed! When talking
about the history of biomimetic robotics, it is necessary to note the work of
Ichiro Kato’s group at Waseda University in the early 1970s on design and
control of biped robots (http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanoid_robot).
They developed the first biped robot, WaBOT-1, in 1973 and a musician
robot that played the piano in 1984. Their work laid the foundation for the
research and development of present-day humanoid robots. Since the early
1980s, inspired by motion of snakes and spiders, Hirose and his group have
designed several snake robots and legged robots (Hirose and Yamda 2009).
Figure 1.2 shows the latest design of a snake robot created at the Shenyang
Institute of Automation (China; Z. Liu et al. 2006). In 1997, Honda presented
the first humanoid robot, Asimo, that truly has a humanoid appearance
and integrates computer, control, sensing systems, power, and into a single
stand-alone body (Hirai 1997). Since then, several humanoid robots, such as
the Sony humanoid robot QRIO (Movellan et al. 2004), the AIST humanoid
robot HRP-2 (Kaneko et al. 2004; Figure 1.1), and the BIT humanoid robot
FIGURE 1.2
Robotic snake developed by Z. Liu et al. (2006) at the Shenyang Institute of Automation and
Ritsumeikan University.