Such a part of the body as a tail is quite common in the animal world, with its help many living creatures show wonders of dexterity and can even grasp and hold various objects. Humans, as we know, are deprived of such a body part, and researchers from Keio University, Japan, decided to correct this situation by equipping humans with a robotic tail, which allows humans to keep their balance in almost any, even the most difficult situation.
Such automated tails have long been used in the field of robotics. With their help, some kinds of jumping robots begin to demonstrate miracles of dexterity. But the device created by Japanese researchers is designed with a more serious purpose.
The design of the artificial tail is inspired by the structure of the moving tip of the seahorse’s tail. The artificial tail consists of a series of springy joints that form a kind of spine. And all this is actuated by pneumatic artificial muscles, located in specially designed cavities.
The prototype artificial tail has a length of 71 centimeters, a width of 11.5 centimeters and a weight of 1.6 kilograms. However, using exactly the same design, both longer and shorter devices could easily be made. For now, it uses air compressed by a nearby compressor to power the artificial muscles, which provide movement in eight different directions. But in the future, once the problem of high-capacity and small-sized batteries is solved, this whole device can be made completely autonomous.
With the help of an artificial tail called the Arque, the center of gravity of the human body can be changed by a certain amount in exactly the same way that a monkey jumps from one tree branch to another. While the monkey brain controls the tail at the level of reflexes, the artificial tail is controlled by a microcontroller with sensors placed on different parts of the human body. This allows the controller to determine the current position of the center of gravity and calculate the movement of the artificial tail so that the person can always maintain balance.
The Japanese researchers themselves realize that such devices are unlikely to find widespread use in ordinary everyday life. However, something similar could be used to provide another kind of feedback in a virtual reality environment, in conditions where you need to change the balance of the human body in response to some changes in the virtual environment, such as walking in a sharply variable “virtual wind”, for example.