Robots are becoming more “humanlike”. Dennis Hong’s team at Virginia Tech introduced a new technology which is a Gangnam Sytle Dancer Charlie-2. This robot has titanium springs as leg muscles. These act as real muscles because it can be thiner and longer or thicker and smaller according to motion without changing any volume.

Actually, there is no obvious reason to convert robots into more humanlike form because tendons and muscles sometimes constitute difficult situations in regards to elasticity even for people, let alone for robots. The more humanlike robots are, the less mobility they will have in general. However, this program, called ASH(Autonomous Shipboard Humanoid), is a part of SAFFIR technology, which is a technological research which was founded by Office of Naval Research. Its target is finding real solutions to accidents using robots in human form.

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