A humanoid neck system featuring low motion-noise

This paper presents our recently developed humanoid neck system that can effectively mimic motion of human neck with very low motion noises. The feature of low motion noises allows our system to work like a real human neck. Thus the level of acoustic noises from wearable equipments, such as donning respirators or chemical-resistant jackets, induced by human head motion can be simulated and investigated using such a system. Our low motion-noise hu-manoid head/neck system is based on the spring structure, which can generate 1 degree of freedom (DOF) jaw movement and 3DOF neck movement. To guarantee the low-noise feature, no noise-makers like gear and electro-driven parts are embedded in the head/neck structure. Instead, the motion is driven by seven polyester cables, and the actuators pulling the cables are sealed in a sound insulation box. Furthermore, statics analysis and motion control design of the system have been presented. Experimental results clearly show that the head/neck system can greatly mimic the motion of human head with an A-weighted noise level of 30 dB or below.