Baby Steps: A Design Proposal for More Believable Motion in an Infant-Sized Android

In studying human interaction, an android can serve as a precisely controlled apparatus to elicit human response. However, if an android is to substitute for a human being in social, cognitive, and neuroscientific experiments, it is essential to control for the effects of appearance by designing it to look and move as much like a human being as possible. The goal of this project is to create an infant-sized android to use in experiments. We propose design concepts for android joints and joint control to imitate human muscle control and appearance. The synchronized motion of servomotors and anatomically correct muscle-joint relations combine with the passive motion of elastic muscles to control the android’s movements. The implementation of an android leg exhibits these concepts.

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