Research on Biomimetic Design Methods for Humanoid Robot Thigh*

Abstract

Human bones have formed the preferred configuration for high-strength and lightweight after long-time evolution. Taking human’s longest and strongest bone - the femur - as an example, it is consist of two characteristic layers, i.e. the substantia compacta and the substantia spongiosd. This article innovatively imitates the structural characteristics of human femur, the thigh of humanoid robot is designed in form of "variable thickness shell + variable density lattice". The thickness of shell and the density of lattice are adjusted by the initial stress distribution individually. Results show that the weight of shell and lattice of the thigh structure can be reduced by 20% under reasonable mapping relationship of "stress - shell thickness" and "stress - lattice rod diameter", while the structural stiffness meets the application requirements. Finally, the limiting factors of the "variable thickness shell + variable density lattice" structure designing approach are analyzed, and potential measures for optimizing the design method of the humanoid robot thigh in the future are described.