This tensegrity biped from 2015 incorporates Tom’s most recent iterations of anatomy and shows in detail how the knee joint would work.

Context: Tom Flemons Archive

(Nov 14, 2015) FYI see google drive for a new jpeg and sketchup file Ts-biped.skp    I’ve been working on integrating all of the tensegrity components that could make up a body for a long time. This file integrates (somewhat) a tensegrity linkage from the foot to the scapula showing a possible way to build a functionable tensegrity robot. This version incorporates all of my most recent iterations of anatomy and shows in detail how the knee joint would work.

It would be great to get a version of this on NTRT and see if it could learn to walk. I’ll need to find a way to fit arms to provide counterbalancing oscillations but this is a start…

      

 

Not an exact mapping onto anatomy

(June 7, 2016) A lot of the research I did I can now apply to robotics. For example I would base torsos on expanded octahedrons (because they are bilaterally symmetrical), would wrap tensegrity saddle joints with helical tensegrity masts (to keep joints from touching), and base the transfer of biforcated forces from the spine to the pelvis to the legs on a tensegrity octet truss configuration. I would base a spine on a Fuller mast wrapped in a helical mast and base the geometry of a foot or hand on the chirality of tensegrity prisms. I think I can make a good case for all of these choices and I have clearly been influenced by a study of anatomy but it’s not the same as saying that this is an exact mapping onto anatomy. This is the difference between the map and the territory. We cannot hope to reproduce the complexity of the body with our current technologies so I am reduced to simple structures that emulate similar function.

See related discussion in Models of Body Parts