SOFT BODY ROBOT FOR PHYSICAL INTERACTION WITH HUMANS

Soft-body robot hardware for safe physical interaction with humans (continuation filing of the same Yamane/Kim/Alspach patent family).

A robot designed for reducing collision impacts during human interaction. The robot includes a robot controller including a joint control module. The robot includes a link including a rigid support element and a soft body segment coupled to the rigid support element, and the body segment includes a deformable outer sidewall enclosing an interior space. The robot includes a pressure sensor sensing pressure in the interior space of the link. A joint is coupledto the rigid support element to rotate or position the link. During operations, the robotcontroller operates the joint based on the pressure sensed by the pressure sensor. The robot controller modifies operation of the joint from a first operating state with a servo moving or positioning the joint to a second operating state with the servo operating to allow the joint to be moved or positioned in response to outside forces applied to the link.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a functional block or schematic drawing of a robot of the present description including soft and/or deformable (e.g., non-elastic deformation) body parts;

FIG. 2 illustrates a method for controlling a robot, such as the robot of FIG. 1, having soft body parts;

FIG. 3 illustrates a front view of an upper body of a soft body robot of the present description;

FIG. 4 illustrates a framework for designing mechanisms and interactive functions for a robot, which may be based onan animated character, with soft body parts;

FIGS. 5 and 6 illustrate, respectively, graphical representations of a set of kinematic information and a set of mesh data obtained from a digital model of an animated (or other) character used in designing a soft bodyrobot;

FIG. 7 illustrates a soft skin prototype for use as a soft body module or body part of a robot of the present description;

FIG. 8 illustrates thrust bearings that may be used in or for coupling with the soft body modules described herein such as the module in FIG. 7;

FIG. 9 illustrates a kinematic model of an exemplary upper body robot prototyped by the inventors;

FIGS. 10A-10C illustrate front, side, and perspective front views of an upper body robot prototype fabricated using 3D printed modules for the links and conforming to the kinematic model of FIG. 9 and fitting within the mesh data of FIG. 6;

FIG. 11 illustrates an exploded sectional