ity for cognitive development are fundamental differences from the many excellent
humanoids already developed.
At the same time the open approach (both for hardware and software), i.e. the
open access of the research community to the software and hardware modules of
the iCub, will allow a wide range of experimentation in both the software and
at the hardware mechanical/sensory level by an enlarged user group, speeding up
the development of the cognitive paradigms. In addition to this, the access to
the sensory modules of the robot (hand tactile sensor/limb level force sensing and
sensing skin) will enable experimentation and evaluation of the sensing facilities,
and illuminate their important role in the development of cognitive capabilities.
The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 introduces the specifications from
kinematics point of view, and also presents dynamic performance criteria andUNCORRECTED  PROOF
simulation studies to consolidate the design structure. Section 3 focuses on the
actuation selection needed to achieve the performance targets. Details of the
physical construction of the robot limbs and body segments is provided in Section 4,
while Section 5 reports on the currently developed sensory system of the iCub,
the electronic hardware and control architecture. Section 6 shows the constructed
iCub prototype and compares the performance against the design requirement, while
conclusions and future work are addressed in Section 7.
2. ICUB SPECIFICATIONS
Development of a robotic platform for neural testing that has the embodied capacity
of a human child poses many challenges that must be addressed in a methodical and
concurrent manner to coordinate and integrate the various components that form the
full and complete mechatronic structure. There is clearly a requirement for many
iterations of the design process before reaching a final prototype. Nonetheless, there
is a need to define a starting point which in this instance was to aim for a robot that
has the physical and ultimately cognitive capacity of a 2.5-year-old with the ability
to develop to this stage from the equivalent of newborn.
2.1. Kinematics
Among the first and most important questions to be addressed when considering the
hardware design is the fundamental kinematic layout, to enable the natural, stable
and robust actions found in a young child. The kinematic specifications of the body
of the iCub including the definition of the number of d.o.f. required and their actual
location, as well as the actual size of the limbs and torso was based on ergonomics
studies and X-ray images (Fig. 1) [19].
This ergonomic data was augmented by several iCub simulation models that
targeted definition and analysis of the required motions of a baby or young child
as it developed its physical capabilities in its first 2.5 years.
From these analyses the total number of d.o.f. for the upper body was set to 38
(seven for each arm, nine for each hand and six for the head) (Fig. 2). For the legs
the simulations indicated that for crawling, sitting and squatting a 5-d.o.f. leg is
adequate. However, it was decided to incorporate an additional d.o.f. at the ankle
to support not only crawling, but also standing (supported and unsupported) and
walking. Therefore each leg has 6 d.o.f.: these include three at the hip, one at the
knee and two at the ankle (flexion/extension and abduction/adduction). The foot
twist rotation was not implemented.
The human spine/waist joint structure has a fundamental role in the flexibility
and efficiency of the human torso motions. The spine/waist sections implanted in
humanoids robots are typically much simpler mechanisms, mainly providing 2 d.o.f.
for the upper torso; however, humanoids that try to replicate the functionally of the 机器人平台英文文献和中文翻译(2):http://www.youerw.com/fanyi/lunwen_13356.html