Advantages of flexible musculoskeletal robot structure in sensory acquisition

Morphological computation is the concept for which a well-designed hardware can bear part of the computational cost required for robot??s control and perception. So far, many musculoskeletal robots have been developed by taking inspiration from human??s one and shown superior motion performances. The use of pneumatic artificial muscles (PAMs) has been the key to realize these high performance. Additionally, PAMs have the possibility of being used as sensors for environmental information because they are flexible and backdrivable. In this research, we focus on clarifying how PAMs can contribute to morphological computation of robots driven by these actuators. In particular, we propose an analysis method based on transfer entropy and apply this method to the experimental data acquired by a musculoskeletal robot that opens a door.