Researchers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology have been experimenting with mimicking what is arguably one of the most impressive combinations of flexibility and power in the animal kingdom: the neck of the giraffe. Giraffe necks can weigh up to 150 kilograms and be 2 meters long, but they’ve evolved to be bendy and strong, not just to get those tasty high-growing leaves but also because male giraffes battle each other with their necks, occasionally to the death.
As a first step toward realizing a powerful and flexible robot, they built a half-scale musculoskeletal robot, mimicking the structure and mechanism of the giraffe neck based on anatomical knowledge, and reproduced part of its characteristics. The robotic giraffe neck does its best to mimic the structure of an actual giraffe neck with vertebrae and tendons arranged similarly. The name of this robot is Giraffe Neck Robot #1, which does suggest that other robots will follow.
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