Design of Violinist Robot’s Right Hand for Bow Hold with Inflatable Soft Mechanism*

Abstract

This study presents a design for the right hand of an anthropomorphic violinist robot and its preliminary experimental results. Previously, we used an attachment for bow holding, in which the bow was firmly fixed to an aluminum plate by screws. However, because of the bow’s natural elasticity, the fixed bow bounces on the strings during the bowing, resulting in undesired oscillating sounds. Thus, we designed a new hand that included an inflatable soft mechanism for bow holding to prevent bouncing during bowing. The fabricated new prototype hand had three chambers covered with a membrane made of silicone rubber. By increasing the air pressure inside the chambers using a syringe, the silicone membrane above the chamber inflates, reducing the bow and sound oscillation owing to its damping ability. Based on the experimental results, we confirmed that it reduced the bow oscillation, which increased the quality of the produced sounds.