TECHNOLOGY
Arm

@The shoulder and elbow part of TWENDY-ONE arm has four degrees of freedom with small and light weight passive impedance adjusting mechanism. When TWENDY-ONE comes into contact with environment and if the robot does not have its accurate information such as location, the quality of the material, the robot can adapt to it by its passivity and can perform the task in stable and speedily. This passivity has also advantage in the case that the robot works together with human. The robot can follow human motion easily and avoid applying an unexpected force to human. On the surface of the whole arm of TWENDY-ONE, the distributed force sensors are installed. It enable the robot to realize holding human and a heavy object under the whole contact of the arm.

The surface is overlaid with soft skins (made of silicone) for collision safety and also with distributed force sensors to detect physical contact with persons on any part of the body. All wire-harness are built in outer shell.
Trunk

The trunk of TWENDY-ONE has four degrees of freedom in total. The high power actuators are installed into the joints to pick up a heavy object on the floor and to support the human body. In the backpack, the TWENDY-ONE whole body controller is installed. The LEDs at the chest part display the internal condition of the robot by changing the illuminations. The chest and the back have the distributed force sensors to detect contact with human and environment. TWENDY-ONE has the omni-directional mobile mechanism and can move around efficiently even if the robot is in the narrow space. This mobile mechanism equips twelve ultrasonic sensors and a six-axis force sensor to detect objects and humans near the robot to keep safety.