Humanoids exhibit a wide variety in terms of joint configuration, actuators, and degrees of freedom, resulting in different achievable movements and tasks for each type. Particularly, musculoskeletal humanoids are developed to closely emulate human body structure and movement functions, consisting of a skeletal framework driven by numerous muscle actuators. The redundant arrangement of muscles relative to the skeletal degrees of freedom has been used to represent the flexible and complex body movements observed in humans. However, due to this flexible body and high degrees of freedom, modeling, simulation, and control become extremely challenging, limiting the feasible movements and tasks. In this study, we integrate the musculoskeletal humanoid Musashi with the wire-driven robot CubiX, capable of connecting to the environment, to form CubiXMusashi. This combination addresses the shortcomings of traditional musculoskeletal humanoids and enables movements beyond the capabilities of other humanoids. CubiXMusashi connects to the environment with wires and drives by winding them, successfully achieving movements such as pull-up, rising from a lying pose, and mid-air kicking, which are difficult for Musashi alone. This concept demonstrates that various humanoids, not limited to musculoskeletal humanoids, can mitigate their physical constraints and acquire new abilities by connecting to the environment and driving through wires.

For a robot with redundant sensors and actuators distributed throughout its body, it is difficult to construct a controller or a neural network using all of them due to computational cost and complexity. Therefore, it is effective to extract functionally related sensors and actuators, group them, and construct a controller or a network for each of these groups. In this study, the functional and spatial connections among sensors and actuators are embedded into a graph structure and a method for automatic grouping is developed. Taking a musculoskeletal humanoid with a large number of redundant muscles as an example, this method automatically divides all the muscles into regions such as the forearm, upper arm, scapula, neck, etc., which has been done by humans based on a geometric model. The functional relationship among the muscles and the spatial relationship of the neural connections are calculated without a geometric model.

A humanoid robot that can drive a car could one day be used as a chauffeur, though its creator concedes that this may take at least 50 years. Most driverless cars work very differently to a human driver, using artificial intelligence and custom mechanical systems to directly move the steering wheel and pedals. This approach is much more efficient and simpler than using a humanoid robot to drive, but it is also bespoke for each particular car. Kento Kawaharazuka at the University of Tokyo and his colleagues have developed a humanoid robot, called Musashi, that can drive a car in the same way as a human. It has a human-like "skeleton" and "musculature", as well as cameras in each of its eyes and force sensors in its hands and feet.

This paper summarizes an autonomous driving project by musculoskeletal humanoids. The musculoskeletal humanoid, which mimics the human body in detail, has redundant sensors and a flexible body structure. These characteristics are suitable for motions with complex environmental contact, and the robot is expected to sit down on the car seat, step on the acceleration and brake pedals, and operate the steering wheel by both arms. We reconsider the developed hardware and software of the musculoskeletal humanoid Musashi in the context of autonomous driving. The respective components of autonomous driving are conducted using the benefits of the hardware and software. Finally, Musashi succeeded in the pedal and steering wheel operations with recognition.

High-tech tools, including an undersea "mountain goat," and years of research led to the discovery of the WWII-era Musashi in the Pacific. WATCH: Footage from an unmanned submersible shows wreckage of the World War II battleship. High-tech tools, including an undersea "mountain goat," and years of research led to the discovery of the WWII-era Musashi in the Pacific. WATCH: Footage from an unmanned submersible shows wreckage of the World War II battleship. After years of meticulous historical research and seafloor terrain analysis, it was an underwater "mountain goat" that ultimately found the wreck of one of history's most impressive battleships, the Musashi.