BarLab

Biomechatronics and Agricultural Lab (https://barlab.academy ) is the home for our humanoid robot, ISAC, which was designed and built within the Vanderbilt University CRL Lab, initially as a robotic aid to the physically-challenged. Later this robot was modified and transferred to our lab by Dr. Erdemir. ISAC has two 6-degree-of-freedom arms actuated by pneumatic McKibben Artificial Muscles. These were manufactured by Bridgestone, who called them " Soft Arms”. ISAC has anthropomorphic, hand-like end effectors, built in-house. To complete the arm-hand systems, ISAC has 6-axis force-torque sensors at each wrist, proximity sensors on the palms, and rudimentary touch sensors on each finger. ISAC employs color, stereo, active vision with pan, tilt, and verge, sonic localization, infrared motion detection, and speech I/O. Although its sensory-motor suite is not nearly as rich as those of a vertebrate animal, the diversity of its sensory modalities coupled with its 18 degrees of freedom in motion have enabled us to equip ISAC with several complex behaviors.