Co-Development of an Infant Prototype in Hardware and Simulation based on CT Imaging Data

The development of biomimetic robots has gained research interest in the last years as it may both help understanding processes of motion execution in biological systems as well as developping a novel generation of intelligent and energy efficient robots. However, exact model generation that builds up on observations and robot design is very time intensive. In this paper we present a novel pipeline for co-development of biomimetic hardware and simulation models based on biological Computer Tomography (CT) data. For this purpose we exploit State of the Art rapid prototyping technologies such as 3D Printing and the Neurorobotics Platform for musculoskeletal simulations in virtual environments. The co-development integrates both advantages of virtual and physical experimental models and is expected to increase development speed of controllers that can be tested on the simulated counterpart before application to a printed robot model. We demonstrate the pipeline by generating a one year old infant model as a musculoskeletal simulation model and a print-in-place 3D printed skeleton as a single movable part. Even though we here only introduce the initial body generation and only a first test setup for a modular sensory and control framework, we can clearly spot advantages in terms of rapid model generation and highly biological related models. Engineering costs are reduced and models can be provided to a wide research community for controller testing in an early development phase.