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Humanoid Robots
New Developments
 Humanoid Robots
New Developments

Edited by
Armando Carlos de Pina Filho

I-Tech
IV

Published by Advanced Robotic Systems International and I-Tech

I-Tech
Vienna
Austria

Abstracting and non-profit use of the material is permitted with credit to the source. Statements and
opinions expressed in the chapters are these of the individual contributors and not necessarily those of
the editors or publisher. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the
published articles. Publisher assumes no responsibility liability for any damage or injury to persons or
property arising out of the use of any materials, instructions, methods or ideas contained inside. After
this work has been published by the Advanced Robotic Systems International, authors have the right to
republish it, in whole or part, in any publication of which they are an author or editor, and the make
other personal use of the work.

© 2007 Advanced Robotic Systems International

www.ars-journal.com
Additional copies can be obtained from:
[email protected]

First published June 2007

Printed in Croatia

A catalogue record for this book is available from the Austrian Library.
Humanoid Robots, New Developments, Edited by Armando Carlos de Pina Filho
p. cm.
ISBN 978-3-902613-00-4
1. Humanoid Robots. 2. Applications. I. Armando Carlos de Pina Filho
 V

Preface

For many years, the human being has been trying, in all ways, to recreate the com-
plex mechanisms that form the human body. Such task is extremely complicated
and the results are not totally satisfactory. However, with increasing technological
advances based on theoretical and experimental researches, man gets, in a way, to
copy or to imitate some systems of the human body.

These researches not only intended to create humanoid robots, great part of them
constituting autonomous systems, but also, in some way, to offer a higher knowl-
edge of the systems that form the human body, objectifying possible applications
in the technology of rehabilitation of human beings, gathering in a whole studies
related not only to Robotics, but also to Biomechanics, Biomimmetics, Cybernetics,
among other areas.

This book presents a series of researches inspired by this ideal, carried through by
various researchers worldwide, looking for to analyze and to discuss diverse sub-
jects related to humanoid robots. The presented contributions explore aspects
about robotic hands, learning, language, vision and locomotion.

From the great number of interesting information presented here, I believe that this
book can offer some aid in new research, as well as stimulating the interest of peo-
ple for this area of study related to the humanoid robots.

Editor
Armando Carlos de Pina Filho
 VII

Contents
Preface V

1. Design of modules and components for humanoid robots 001

Albert Albers, Sven Brudniok, Jens Ottnad,
Christian Sauter and Korkiat Sedchaicharn

2. Gait Transition from Quadrupedal to Bipedal Locomotion 017

of an Oscillator-driven Biped Robot
Shinya Aoi and Kazuo Tsuchiya

3. Estimation of the Absolute Orientation of a Five-link 031

Walking Robot with Passive Feet
Yannick Aoustin, Gaëtan Garcia and Philippe Lemoine

4. Teaching a Robotic Child - Machine Learning Strategies 045

for a Humanoid Robot from Social Interactions
Artur Arsenio

5. Biped Gait Generation and Control Based on Mechanical Energy Constraint 069
Fumihiko Asano, Masaki Yamakita, Norihiro Kamamichi and Zhi-Wei Luo

6. Dynamic Simulation of Single and Combined Trajectory 089

Path Generation and Control of A Seven Link Biped Robot
Ahmad Bagheri

7. Analytical criterions for the generation of highly 121

dynamic gaits for humanoid robots: dynamic propulsion
criterion and dynamic propulsion potential
Bruneau Olivier and David Anthony

8. Design of a Humanoid Robot Eye 137

Giorgio Cannata and Marco Maggiali

9. Multicriteria Optimal Humanoid Robot Motion Generation 157

Genci Capi, Yasuo Nasu, Mitsuhiro Yamano and Kazuhisa Mitobe

10. An Incremental Fuzzy Algorithm for The Balance of Humanoid Robots 171
Erik Cuevas, Daniel Zaldivar, Ernesto Tapia and Raul Rojas

11. Spoken Language and Vision for Adaptive Human-Robot Cooperation 185
Peter Ford Dominey
VIII

12. Collision-Free Humanoid Reaching: Past, Present, and Future 209

Evan Drumwright and Maja Mataric

13. Minimum Energy Trajectory Planning for Biped Robots 227

Yasutaka Fujimoto

14. Real-time Vision Based Mouth Tracking and Parameterization 241

for a Humanoid Imitation Task
Sabri Gurbuz, Naomi Inoue and Gordon Cheng

15. Clustered Regression Control of a Biped Robot Model 253

Olli Haavisto and Heikki Hyötyniemi

16. Sticky Hands 265

Joshua G. Hale and Frank E. Pollick

17. Central pattern generators for gait generation in bipedal robots 285
Almir Heralic, Krister Wolff and Mattias Wahde

18. Copycat hand - Robot hand generating imitative behaviour at 305

high speed and with high accuracy
Kiyoshi Hoshino

19. Energy-Efficient Walking for Biped Robot Using Self-Excited 321

Mechanism and Optimal Trajectory Planning
Qingjiu Huang & Kyosuke Ono

20. Geminoid: Teleoperated android of an existing person 343

Shuichi Nishio, Hiroshi Ishiguro and Norihiro Hagita

21. Obtaining Humanoid Robot Controller Using Reinforcement Learning 353

Masayoshi Kanoh and Hidenori Itoh

22. Reinforcement Learning Algorithms In Humanoid Robotics 367

Dusko Katic and Miomir Vukobratovic

23. A designing of humanoid robot hands in endoskeleton and 401

exoskeleton styles
Ichiro Kawabuchi

24. Assessment of the Impressions of Robot Bodily Expressions 427

using Electroencephalogram Measurement of Brain Activity
A. Khiat, M. Toyota, Y. Matsumoto and T. Ogasawara

25. Advanced Humanoid Robot Based on the Evolutionary 449

Inductive Self-organizing Network
Dongwon Kim, Gwi-Tae Park
 IX

26. Balance-Keeping Control Of Upright Standing In Byped 467

Human Beings And Its Application For Stability Assessment
Yifa Jiang and Hidenori Kimura

27. Experiments on Embodied Cognition: 487

A Bio-Inspired Approach for Robust Biped Locomotion
Frank Kirchner, Sebastian Bartsch and Jose DeGea

28. A Human Body Model for Articulated 3D Pose Tracking 505

Steffen Knoop, Stefan Vacek and Rüdiger Dillmann

29. Drum Beating and a Martial Art Bojutsu Performed by a Humanoid Robot 521
Atsushi Konno, Takaaki Matsumoto, Yu Ishida, Daisuke Sato & Masaru Uchiyama

30. On Foveated Gaze Control and Combined Gaze and Locomotion Planning 531
Kolja Kühnlenz, Georgios Lidoris, Dirk Wollherr and Martin Buss

31. Vertical Jump: Biomechanical Analysis and Simulation Study 551

Jan Babic and Jadran Lenarcic

32. Planning Versatile Motions for Humanoid in a Complex Environment 567

Tsai-Yen Li and Pei-Zhi Huang
 1

Design of Modules and Components for

Humanoid Robots
Albert Albers, Sven Brudniok, Jens Ottnad,
Christian Sauter, Korkiat Sedchaicharn
University of Karlsruhe (TH), Institute of Product Development
Germany

1. Introduction
The development of a humanoid robot in the collaborative research centre 588 has the
objective of creating a machine that closely cooperates with humans. The
collaborative research centre 588 (SFB588) “Humanoid Robots – learning and
cooperating multi-modal robots” was established by the German Research
Foundation (DFG) in Karlsruhe in May 2000. The SFB588 is a cooperation of the
University of Karlsruhe, the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe (FZK), the Research
Center for Information Technologies (FZI) and the Fraunhofer Institute for
Information and Data Processing (IITB) in Karlsruhe.
In this project, scientists from different academic fields develop concepts, methods and
concrete mechatronic components and integrate them into a humanoid robot that can share
its working space with humans. The long-term target is the interactive cooperation of robots
and humans in complex environments and situations. For communication with the robot,
humans should be able to use natural communication channels like speech, touch or
gestures. The demonstration scenario chosen in this project is a household robot for various
tasks in the kitchen.
Humanoid robots are still a young technology with many research challenges. Only few
humanoid robots are currently commercially available, often at high costs. Physical
prototypes of robots are needed to investigate the complex interactions between robots
and humans and to integrate and validate research results from the different research
fields involved in humanoid robotics. The development of a humanoid robot platform
according to a special target system at the beginning of a research project is often
considered a time consuming hindrance. In this article a process for the efficient design of
humanoid robot systems is presented. The goal of this process is to minimize the
development time for new humanoid robot platforms by including the experience and
knowledge gained in the development of humanoid robot components in the
collaborative research centre 588.
Weight and stiffness of robot components have a significant influence on energy
efficiency, operating time, safety for users and the dynamic behaviour of the system in
general. The finite element based method of topology optimization gives designers the
possibility to develop structural components efficiently according to specified loads and
boundary conditions without having to rely on coarse calculations, experience or
2 Humanoid Robots, New Developments

intuition. The design of the central support structure of the upper body of the humanoid
robot ARMAR III is an example for how topology optimization can be applied in
humanoid robotics. Finally the design of the upper body of the humanoid ARMAR III is
presented in detail.

2. Demand for efficient design of humanoid robots

Industrial robots are being used in many manufacturing plants all over the world. This
product class has reached a high level of maturity and a broad variety of robots for special
applications is available from different manufacturers. Even though both kind of robots,
industrial and humanoid, manipulate objects and the same types of components, e.g.
harmonic drive gears, can be found in both types, the target systems differ significantly.
Industrial robots operate in secluded environments strictly separated from humans. They
perform a limited number of clearly defined repetitive tasks. These machines and the tools
they use are often designed for a special purpose. High accuracy, high payload, high
velocities and stiffness are typical development goals.
Humanoid robots work together in a shared space with humans. They are designed as
universal helpers and should be able to learn new skills and to apply them to new,
previously unknown tasks. Humanlike kinematics allows the robot to act in an
environment originally designed for humans and to use the same tools as humans in a
similar way. Human appearance, behaviour and motions which are familiar to the user
from interaction with peers make humanoid robots more predictable and increase their
acceptance. Safety for the user is a critical requirement. Besides energy efficient drive
technology, a lightweight design is important not only for the mobility of the system but
also for the safety of the user as a heavy robot arm will probably cause more harm in case
of an accident than a light and more compliant one. Due to these significant differences,
much of the development knowledge and product knowledge from industrial robots
cannot be applied to humanoid robots.
The multi-modal interaction between a humanoid robot and its environment, the
human users and eventually other humanoids cannot fully be simulated in its entire
complexity. To investigate these coherences, actual humanoid robots and experiments
are needed. Currently only toy robots and a few research platforms are commercially
available, often at high cost. Most humanoid robots are designed and built according to
the special focus or goals of a particular research project and many more will be built
before mature and standardized robots will be available in larger numbers at lower
prizes. Knowledge gained from the development of industrial robots that have been
used in industrial production applications for decades cannot simply be reused in the
design of humanoid robots due to significant differences in the target systems for both
product classes. A few humanoid robots have been developed by companies, but not
much is known about their design process and seldom is there any information
available that can be used for increasing the time and cost efficiency in the development
of new improved humanoid robots. Designing a humanoid robot is a long and iterative
process as there are various interactions between e.g. mechanical parts and the control
system. The goal of this article is to help shortening the development time and to
reduce the number of iterations by presenting a process for efficient design, a method
for optimizing light yet stiff support structures and presenting the design of the upper
body of the humanoid robot ARMAR III.
Design of Modules and Components for Humanoid Robots 3

3. Design process for humanoid robot modules

The final goal of the development of humanoid robots is to reproduce the capabilities of a
human being in a technical system. Even though several humanoid robots already exist and
significant effort is put into this research field, we are still very far from reaching this goal.
Humanoid robots are complex systems which are characterized by high functional and
spatial integration. The design of such systems is a challenge for designers which cannot yet
be satisfactorily solved and which is often a long and iterative process. Mechatronic systems
like humanoid robots feature multi-technological interactions, which are displayed by the
existing development processes, e.g. in the VDI guideline 2206 “design methodology for
mechatronics systems” (VDI 2004), in a rather general and therefore abstract way. More
specific development processes help to increase the efficiency of the system development.
Humanoid robots are a good example for complex and highly integrated systems with
spatial and functional interconnections between components and assembly groups. They are
multi-body systems in which mechanical, electronic, and information-technological
components are integrated into a small design space and designed to interact with each
other.

3.1 Requirements
The demands result from the actions that the humanoid robot is supposed to perform. The
robot designed in the SFB 588 will interact with humans in their homes, especially in the
kitchen. It will take over tasks from humans, for example loading a dish washer. For this
task it is not necessary, that the robot can walk on two legs, but it has to feature kinematics,
especially in the arms, that enable it to reach for objects in the human surrounding. In
addition, the robot needs the ability to move and to hold objects in its hand (Schulz, 2003).

3.2 Subdivision of the total system

The development of complex systems requires a subdivision of the total system into
manageable partial systems and modules (Fig. 1). The segmentation of the total system of
the humanoid robot is oriented on the interactions present in a system. The total system can
be divided into several subsystems. The relations inside the subsystems are stronger
compared to the interactions between these subsystems. One partial system of the
humanoid robot is e.g. the upper body with the subsystem arm. The elements in the lowest
level in the hierarchy of subsystems are here referred to as modules. In the humanoid
robot’s arm, these modules are hand-, elbow-, and shoulder joint. Under consideration of
the remaining design, these modules can be exchanged with other modules that fulfil the
same function. The modules again consist of function units, as e.g. the actuators for one of
the module’s joints. The function units themselves consist of components, here regarded as
the smallest elements. In the entire drive, these components are the actuator providing the
drive power and the components in the drive train connected in a serial arrangement, e.g.
gears, drive belt, or worm gear transferring the drive power to the joint.

3.3 Selection and data base

Many components used in such highly integrated systems are commonly known,
commercially available and do not have to be newly invented. However, a humanoid robot
consists of a large number of components, and for each of them there may be a variety of
technical solutions. This leads to an overwhelming number of possible combinations, which
4 Humanoid Robots, New Developments

cannot easily be overseen without help and which complicates an efficient target-oriented
development. Therefore it is helpful to file the components of the joints, actuators and
sensors as objects in an object-oriented classification. It enables a requirement-specific access
to the objects and delivers information about possible combinations of components.

Fig. 1. Subdivision of the total system.

3.4 Development sequence

The development sequence conforms to the order in which a component or information has
to be provided for the further procedure. The development process can be roughly divided
into two main sections. The first section determines the basic requirements for the total
system, which have to be known before the design process. This phase includes primarily
two iterations: In the first iteration, the kinematics of the robot is specified according to the
motion space of the robot and the kinematics again has to be describable in order to be
controllable. In the second iteration, the control concept for the robot and the general
possibilities for operating the joints are adjusted to the requirements for the desired
dynamics of the robots. The second sector is the actual design process. The sequence in
which the modules are developed is determined by their position in the serial kinematics of
the robot. This means that e.g. in the arm, first the wrist, the elbow joint and then finally the
shoulder joint are designed.
Since generally all modules have a similar design structure, they can be designed
according to the same procedure. The sequence in this procedure model is determined by
the interactions between the function units and between the components. The relation
between the components and the behaviour of their interaction in case of a change of the
development order can be displayed graphically in a design structure matrix (Browning,
2001). Iterations, which always occur in the development of complex systems, can be
limited by early considering the properties of the components that are integrated at the
end of the development process. One example is the torque measurement in the drive
train. In the aforementioned data base, specifications of the components are given like the
possibility for a component of the drive train to include some kind of torque
measurement. It ensures that after the assembly of a drive train, a power measurement
can be integrated.
Design of Modules and Components for Humanoid Robots 5

3.5 Development of a shoulder joint

The development of a robot shoulder joint according to this approach is exemplarily
described in the following paragraphs. For the tasks that are required from the robot, it is
sufficient if the robot is able to move the arm in front of its body. These movements can be
performed by means of a ball joint in the shoulder without an additional pectoral girdle. In
the available design space, a ball joint can be modelled with the required performance of the
actuators and sensors as a serial connection of three single joints. The axes of rotation of
these joints intersect at one point. A replacement joint is used which consists of a roll joint, a
pitch joint, and then again of another roll joint. The description of the kinematics can only be
clarified together with the entire arm, which requires limiting measures, especially if
redundant degrees of freedom exist (Asfour, 2003).
Information about the mass of the arm and its distribution are requirements for the design
of the shoulder joint module. In addition, information about the connection of elbow and
shoulder has to be available. This includes the components that are led from the elbow to or
through the shoulder, as e.g. cables or drive trains of lower joints. The entire mechatronic
system can be described in an abstract way by the object-oriented means of SysML (System
Modelling Language) (SysML, 2005) diagrams, with which it is possible to perform a system
test with regard to compatibility and operational reliability. It enables the representation of
complex systems at different abstraction levels. Components that are combined in this way
can be accessed in the aforementioned classification, which facilitates a quick selection of the
components that can be used for the system. In addition, it makes a function design model
possible at every point of the development.

Fig. 2. Design of the shoulder module.

In the development of the shoulder module (Fig. 2), at first the function units of the joints for
the three rotating axes are selected according to the kinematics. Then, the function unit
drive, including the actuators and the drive trains, are integrated. Hereafter, the sensors are
selected and integrated. In order to prevent time consuming iterations in the development,
6 Humanoid Robots, New Developments

the components of the total system, integrated at a later stage, are already considered from
the start with regard to their general requirements for being integrated. Examples for this
are the sensors, which can then be assembled without problems since it is made sure that the
already designed system offers the possibility to integrate them. During the next step the
neighbouring module is designed. Information about the required interface of the shoulder
and the mass of the arm and its distribution are given to the torso module.

4. Topology optimization
Topology optimization is used for the determination of the basic layout of a new design. It
involves the determination of features such as the number, location and shape of holes and
the connectivity of the domain. A new design is determined based upon the design space
available, the loads, materials and other geometric constraints, e.g. bearing seats of which
the component is to be composed of.
Today topology optimization is very well theoretically studied (Bendsoe & Sigmund, 2003)
and applied in industrial design processes (Pedersen & Allinger, 2005). The designs
obtained using topology optimization are considered design proposals. These topology
optimized designs can often be rather different compared to designs obtained with a trial
and error design process or designs obtained upon improvements based on experience or
intuition as can be deduced from the motor carrier example in Fig. 3. Especially for complex
loads, which are typical for systems like humanoid robots, these methods of structural
optimization are helpful within the design process.

Design space for topology optimization Constructional implementation

Fig. 3. Topology optimization of a gear oil line bracket provided by BMW Motoren GmbH.
The standard formulation in topology optimization is often to minimize the compliance
corresponding to maximizing the stiffness using a mass constraint for a given amount of
material. Compliance optimization is based upon static structural analyses, modal
analyses or even non-linear problems e.g. models including contacts. A topology
optimization scheme as depicted in Fig. 4. is basically an iterative process that integrates a
finite element solver and an optimization module. Based on a design response supplied
by the FE solver like strain energy for example, the topology optimization module
modifies the FE model.
The FE model is typically used together with a set of loads that are applied to the model.
These loads do not change during the optimization iterations. An MBS extended scheme as
introduced by (Häussler et al., 2001) can be employed to take the dynamic interaction
between the FE model and the MBS system into account.
Design of Modules and Components for Humanoid Robots 7

Fig. 4. Topology optimization scheme.

4.1 Topology optimization of robot thorax

The design of the central support structure of the upper body, the thorax, of the humanoid
robot ARMAR III was determined with the help of topology optimization. The main
functions of this element are the transmission of forces between arms, neck and torso joint
and the integration of mechanical and electrical components, which must be accommodated
for inside the robot’s upper body. For instance four drive units for the elbows have to be
integrated in the thorax to reduce the weight of the arms, electrical components like two PC-
104s, four Universal Controller Modules (UCoM), A/D converters, DC/DC converters and
force-moment controllers.

Fig. 5. Topology optimization of the thorax.

8 Humanoid Robots, New Developments

The left picture in figure 5 shows the initial FE model of the available design space including
the geometric boundary conditions like the mechanical interfaces for the adjoining modules
neck, arms and torso joint as well as the space reserved for important components like
computers and controllers. Together with a set of static loads, this was the input for the
optimization process. The bottom left picture shows the design as it was suggested by the
optimization module after the final optimization loop. This design was then manually
transferred into a 3d model in consideration of manufacturing restrictions. The picture on
the right in Fig. 5 shows the assembled support structure made from high-strength
aluminium plates. The result of the optimization is a stiff and lightweight structure with a
total mass of 2.7 kg.

5. The upper body of ARMAR III

ARMAR III is s a full-size humanoid Robot which is the current demonstrator system of the
collaborative research centre 588. It consists of a sensor head for visual and auditory
perception of the environment, an upper body with two arms with a large range of motion for
the manipulation of objects and a holonomic platform for omni-directional locomotion.
ARMAR III has a modular design consisting of the following modules: head, neck joint,
thorax, torso joint and two arms which are subdivided into shoulder, elbow, wrist and hands.
The head and the holonomic platform were developed at the Research Center for Information
Technologies (FZI), the hands were developed at the Institute for Applied Computer Science at
the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe (Beck et al, 2003; Schulz 2003). The modules for neck, torso
and arms shown in the following figure were designed and manufactured at the Institute of
Product Development (IPEK) at the University of Karlsruhe (TH).

Fig. 6. The upper body of the humanoid robot ARMAR III.

Design of Modules and Components for Humanoid Robots 9

Fig. 7. Kinematics and CAD model of upper body of ARMAR III.

The size of the design space and the motion space of ARMAR III are similar to that of a
human person with a height of approximately 175 cm. The main dimensions of the upper
body can be seen in Fig. 8.
Table 1 gives an overview of the degrees of freedom and the motion range of all modules.
Both arms have seven degrees of freedom. The three degrees of freedom in the shoulder
provide a relatively wide range of motion. Together with two degrees of freedom in the
elbow as well as in the wrist, the arm can be used for complex manipulation tasks that
occur in the primary working environment of ARMAR III, the kitchen. Compared with
other humanoid robots, the arm of ARMAR III provides large and humanlike ranges of
motion. The neck joint with four degrees of freedom allows humanlike motion of the
head.

Fig. 8. Dimension of upper body.

10 Humanoid Robots, New Developments

Degree of Part D.O.F amount total

freedom Wrist 2 2 4
Elbow 2 2 4
Shoulder 3 2 6
Neck 4 1 4
Torso 3 1 3
Upper body 21
Range of Wrist lj1 -30° to 30°
motion lj2 -60° to 60°
Elbow lj3 -90° to 90°
lj4 -10° to 150°
Shoulder lj5 -180° to 180°
lj6 -45° to 180°
lj7 -10° to 180°
Neck lj8 -180° to 180°
lj9 -45° to 45°
lj10 -45° to 45°
lj11 -60° to 60°
Torso lj12 -180° to 180°
lj13 -10° to 60°
lj14 -20° to 20°
Table 1. Degrees of freedom with range of motion.

5.1 Shoulder joint

The shoulder joint is the link between the arm and the torso. In addition to the realization of
three degrees of freedom with intersecting axes in one point, the bowden cables for driving
the elbow joint are guided through the shoulder joint from the elbow drive units in the torso
to the elbow. The drive units of all joints are designed in a way, that their contributions to
the inertia are as small as possible. Therefore the drive unit for panning the arm (Rot. 1),
which has to provide the highest torque in the arm, is attached directly to the torso and does
not contribute to the inertia of the moving part of the arm. The drive units for raising the
arm (Rot. 2) and turning the arm around its longitudinal axis (Rot. 3) have been placed
closely to the rotational axes to improve the dynamics of the shoulder joint. In order to
achieve the required gear ratios in the very limited design space, Harmonic Drive
transmissions, worm gear transmissions and toothed belt transmissions have been used.
These elements allow a compact design of the shoulder with a size similar to a human
shoulder. As all degrees of freedom are realized directly in the shoulder, the design of the
upper arm is slender. The integration of torque sensors in all three degrees of freedom is
realized in two different ways. For the first degree of freedom strain gages are attached to a
torsion shaft which is integrated in the drive train. The torque for raising and turning the
arm is determined by force sensors that measure the axial forces in the worm gear shafts. In
addition to the encoders, which are attached directly at the motors, angular sensors for all
three degrees of freedom are integrated into the drive trains of the shoulder joints. The
position sensors, which are located directly at the joints, allow quasi-absolute angular
position measurement based on incremental optical sensors. A touch-sensitive artificial skin
sensor, which can be used for collision detection or intuitive tactile communication, is
attached to the front and rear part of the shoulder casing (Kerpa et al., 2003).
Design of Modules and Components for Humanoid Robots 11

Fig. 9. Side view of the shoulder joint.

5.2 Elbow joint and upper arm

The elbow joint of ARMAR III has two degrees of freedom. These allow bending as well as
rotating the forearm. The drive units, consisting of motor and Harmonic Drive transmissions,
are not in the arm, but are located in the thorax of the robot. Thus the moving mass of the arm
as well as the necessary design space are reduced, which leads to better dynamic
characteristics and a slim form of the arm. The additional mass in the thorax contributes
substantially less to the mass inertia compared to placing the drive units in the arm.

Fig. 10. Elbow joint.

12 Humanoid Robots, New Developments

Due to this concept, load transmission is implemented with the use of wire ropes, which are
led from the torso through the shoulder to the elbow by rolls and bowden cables. In order to
realize independent control of both degrees of freedom, the wire ropes for turning the
forearm are led through the axis of rotation for bending the elbow. With altogether twelve
rolls, this rope guide realizes the uncoupling of the motion of bending the elbow from
rotating the forearm. In contrast to the previous version of the elbow, where the steel cables
were guided by Bowden cables, this solution leads to smaller and constant friction losses
which is advantageous for the control of this system.
Similar to the shoulder, the angular measurement is realized by encoders attached directly
to the motors as well as optical sensors that are located directly at the joint for both degrees
of freedom. In order to measure the drive torque, load cells are integrated in the wire ropes
in the upper arm. As each degree of freedom in the elbow is driven by two wire ropes the
measuring of force in the wire ropes can be done by differential measurements. Another
possibility for measuring forces offers the tactile sensor skin, which is integrated in the
cylindrical casing of the upper arm.
By placing the drive units in the thorax, there is sufficient design space left in the arm which
can be used for electronic components that process sensor signals and which can be installed
in direct proximity to the sensors in the upper arm.

5.3 Wrist joint and forearm

The wrist has two rotational degrees of freedom with both axes intersecting in one point.
ARMAR III has the ability to move the wrist to the side as well as up and down. This was
realized by a universal joint in very compact design. The lower arm is covered by a
cylindrical casing with an outer diameter of 90 mm. The motors for both degrees of freedom
are fixed at the support structure of the forearm. The gear ratio is obtained by a ball screw
and a toothed belt or a wire rope respectively. The load transmission is almost free from
backlash.

Fig. 11. Forearm with two degrees of freedom in the wrist.

Design of Modules and Components for Humanoid Robots 13

By arranging the motors close to the elbow joint, the centre of mass of the forearm is
shifted towards the body, which is an advantage for movements of the robot arm.
Angular measurement in the wrist is realized by encoders at the motors and with
quasi-absolute angular sensors directly at the joint. To measure the load on the hand, a
6-axis force and torque sensor is fitted between the wrist and the hand (Beck et al.,
2003) (not shown in Fig. 11). The casing of the forearm is also equipped with a tactile
sensor skin. The support structure of the forearm consists of a square aluminium
profile. This rigid lightweight structure offers the possibility of cable routing on the
inside and enough space for mounting electronic components on the flat surfaces of
the exterior.

5.4 Neck joint

The complex kinematics of the human neck is defined by seven cervical vertebrae. Each
connection between two vertebrae can be seen as a joint with three degrees of freedom. For
this robot, the kinematics of the neck has been reduced to a serial kinematics with four
rotational degrees of freedom. Three degrees of freedom were realized in the basis at the
lower end of the neck. Two degrees of freedom allow the neck to lean forwards and
backwards (1) and to both sides (2), another degree of freedom allows rotation around the
longitudinal axis of the neck. At the upper end of the neck, a fourth degree of freedom
allows nodding of the head. This degree of freedom allows more human-like movements of
the head and improves the robots ability to look up and down and to detect objects directly
in front of it.

Fig. 12. Neck joint with four degrees of freedom.

14 Humanoid Robots, New Developments

For the conversion of torque and rotational speed, the drive train of each degree of
freedom consists of Harmonic Drive transmissions either as only transmission element
or, depending on the needed overall gear ratio, in combination with a toothed gear
belt.
The drives for all degrees of freedom in the neck are practically free from backlash. The
motors of all degrees of freedoms are placed as close as possible to the rotational axis in
order to keep the moment of inertia small. The sensors for the angular position
measurement in the neck consist of a combination of incremental encoders, which are
attached directly to the motors, and quasi-absolute optical sensors, which are placed directly
at the rotational axis. The neck module as depicted above weighs 1.6 kg.

5.5 Torso joint

The torso of the upper body of ARMAR III is divided into two parts, the thorax and the
torso joint below it. The torso joint allows motion between the remaining upper body and
the holonomic platform, similar to the functionality of the lower back and the hip joints in
the human body. The kinematics of the torso joint does not exactly replicate the complex
human kinematics of the hip joints and the lower back. The complexity was reduced in
consideration of the functional requirements which result from the main application
scenario of this robot in the kitchen. The torso joint has three rotational degrees of
freedom with the axes intersecting in one point. The kinematics of this joint, as it is
described in table 1 and Fig. 13, is sufficient to allow the robot to easily reach important
points in the kitchen. For example in a narrow kitchen, the whole upper body can turn
sideways or fully around without having to turn the platform. One special requirement
for the torso joint is, that all cables for the electrical energy flow and information flow
between the platform and the upper body need to go through the torso joint. All cables
are to be led from the upper body to the torso joint in a hollow shaft with an inner bore
diameter of 40 mm through the point of intersection of the three rotational axes. This
significantly complicates the design of the joint, but the cable connections can be shorter
and stresses on the cables due to compensational motions, that would be necessary if the
cable routing was different, can be reduced. This simplifies the design of the interface
between upper and lower body. For transportation of the robot, the upper and lower part
of the body can be separated by loosening one bolted connection and unplugging a few
central cable connections. Due to the special boundary conditions from the cable routing,
all motors had to be placed away from the point of intersection of the three axes and the
motor for the vertical degree of freedom Rot. 3 could not be positioned coaxially to the
axis of rotation. The drive train for the degrees of freedom Rot. 1 and Rot. 3 consists of
Harmonic Drive transmissions and toothed belt transmissions.
The drive train for the degree of freedom Rot.2 is different from most of the other drive
trains in ARMAR III as it consists of a toothed belt transmission, a ball screw and a
piston rod which transforms the translational motion of the ball screw into the
rotational motion for moving the upper body sideways. This solution is suitable for the
range of motion of 40°, it allows for a high gear ratio and the motor can be placed away
from the driven axis and away from the point of intersection of the rotational axes.
In addition to the encoders, which are directly attached to the motors, two precision
potentiometers and one quasi-absolute optical sensor are used for the angular position
measurement.
Design of Modules and Components for Humanoid Robots 15

Fig. 13. Torso joint.

6. Conclusions and future work

Methods for the efficient development of modules for a humanoid robot were developed.
Future work will be to create a database of system elements for humanoid robot components
and the characterization for easier configuration of future humanoids. This database can then
be used to generate consistent principle solutions for robot components more efficiently.
Topology optimization is a tool for designing and optimizing robot components which need to
be light yet stiff. The thorax of ARMAR III was designed with the help of this method. For the
simulation of mechatronic systems like humanoid robots, it is necessary to consider
mechanical aspects as well as the behaviour of the control system. This is not yet realized in
the previously described topology optimization process. The coupling between the mechanical
system and the control system might influence the overall system’s dynamic behaviour
significantly. As a consequence, loads that act on a body in the system might be affected not
only by the geometric changes due to optimization but also by the control system as well. The
topology optimization scheme shown in Fig. 4 should be extended by means of integrating the
dynamic system with a multi body simulation and the control system as depicted in Fig. 14.

Fig. 14. Controlled MBS extended topology optimization.

The upper body of the humanoid robot ARMAR III was presented. The modules for neck,
arms and torso were explained in detail. The main goals for the future work on ARMAR III
16 Humanoid Robots, New Developments

are to further reduce the weight and to increase the energy efficiency, increase the payload
and to design a closed casing for all robot joints.

7. Acknowledgement
The work presented in this chapter is funded by the German Research Foundation DFG in the
collaborative research centre 588 “Humanoid robots - learning and cooperating multi- modal robots”.

8. References
Asfour, T. (2003). Sensomotorische Bewegungskoordination zur Handlungsausführung
eines humanoiden Roboters, Dissertation Faculty for Computer Science, University
of Karlsruhe (TH)
Beck, S.; Lehmann, A.; Lotz, T.; Martin, J.; Keppler, R.; Mikut, R. (2003). Model-based
adaptive control of a fluidic actuated robotic hand, Proc., GMA-Congress 2003
Bendsoe. M.; Sigmund, O. (2003) Topology Optimization – Theory, Methods, Application,
Springer Verlag
Browning, T. R. (2001). Applying the Design Structure Matrix to System Decomposition and
Integration Problems: A Review and New Directions, IEEE Transaction on
Engineering Management, Vol. 48, No. 3
Häussler, P.; Emmrich ; D.; Müller, O.; Ilzhöfer, B.; Nowicki, L.; Albers, A. (2001).
Automated Topology Optimization of Flexib-le Components in Hybrid Finite
Element Multibody Systems using ADAMS/Flex and MSC.Construct, ADAMS
European User's Conference, Berchtesgaden, Germany
Häussler, P. (2005). Ein neuer Prozess zur parameterfreien Formoptimierung dynamisch
beanspruchter Bauteile in mechanischen Systemen auf Basis von Lebensdaueranalysen und
hybriden Mehrkörpersystemen, dissertation Faculty for Mechanical Engineering, research
reports of the Institute for Product Development, University of Karlsruhe, ISSN 1615-8113
Kerpa, O.; Weiss, K.; Wörn, H.; (2003). Development of Flexible Tactile Sensor System for a
Humanoid Robot, Intelligent Robots and Systems IROS, Las Vegas USA
Minx, J.; Häussler, P.; Albers, A.; Emmrich D.; Allinger, P. (2004). Integration von FEM, MKS
und Strukturoptimierung zur ganzheitlichen, virtuellen Entwicklung von
dynamisch beanspruchten Bauteilen, NAFEMS seminar, analysis of multibody
systems with FEM and MBS, October, 27th -28th, Wiesbaden
Ortiz, J.; Bir, G. (2006). Verification of New MSC.ADAMS Linearization Capability For Wind
Turbine Applications, 44th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting and Exhibit, Reno, Nevada
Pedersen, C.B.W.; Allinger, P. (2005). Recent Developments in the Commercial
Implementation of Topology Optimization. TopoptSYMP2005 - IUTAM-
Symposium- Topological design optimization of structures, machines and material
– status and perspectives, Copenhagen, Denmark
Schäfer, C. (2000). Entwurf eines anthropomorphen Roboterarms: Kinematik,
Arbeitsraumanalyse, Softwaremodellierung, dissertation Faculty for Computer
Science, University of Karlsruhe (TH)
Schulz, S. (2003). Eine neue Adaptiv-Hand-Prothese auf der Basis flexibler Fluidaktoren,
Dissertation, Faculty for Mechanical Engineering, University of Karlsruhe (TH) 2003
SysML Partners, (2005). Systems Modeling Language (SysML) specification version 1.0
alpha, 14, www.sysml.org
VDI Gesellschaft Entwicklung Konstruktion Vertrieb (Editor) (2004), VDI-Guideline 2206:
Design methodology for mechatronic systems; Beuth Verlag GmbH, Berlin
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
opportunity, in the evil days of the civil war, to picture them as a
refuge.
When the Romans ruled the world, commerce lost much of the
hazard and enterprise which had earlier instigated international
rivalry. The interest in the western ocean subsided into merely
speculative concern; and wild fancy was brought into play in
depicting its horrors, its demons and shoals, with the intermingling
of sky and water.
It is by no means certain that Columbus knew
anything of this ancient lore of the early Knowledge of
such early
Mediterranean people. There is little or nothing in attempts.
the early maps of the fifteenth century to indicate
that such knowledge was current among those who Maps XVth cent.
made or contributed to the making of such of these
maps as have come down to us. The work of some
Genoese voyages,
of the more famous chart makers Columbus could 1291.
hardly have failed to see, or heard discussed in the
maritime circles of Portugal; and indeed it was to his own
countrymen, Marino Sanuto, Pizignani, Bianco, and Fra Mauro, that
Portuguese navigators were most indebted for the broad
cartographical treatment of their own discoveries. At the same time
there was no dearth of legends of the venturesome Genoese, with
fortunes not always reassuring. There was a story, for instance, of
some of these latter people, who in 1291 had sailed west from the
Pillars of Hercules and had never returned. Such was a legend that
might not have escaped Columbus's attention even in his own
country, associating with it the names of the luckless Tedisio Doria
and Ugolino Vivaldi in their efforts to find a western way to India.
Harrisse, however, who has gone over all the evidence of such a
purpose, fails to be satisfied.
These stories of ocean hazards hung naturally about the seaports of
Portugal.
Galvano tells us of such a tale concerning a
Portuguese ship, driven west, in 1447, to an island Antillia.
with seven cities, where its sailors found the people speaking
Portuguese, who said they had deserted their country on the death
of King Roderigo. This is the legend of Antillia, already referred to.
Columbus recalled, when afterwards at the
Canaries on his first voyage, how it was during his Islands seen.
sojourn in Portugal that some one from Madeira
presented to the Portuguese king a petition for a vessel to go in
quest of land, occasionally seen to the westward from that island.
Similar stories were not unknown to him of like apparitions being
familiar in the Azores. A story which he had also heard of one
Antonio Leme having seen three islands one hundred leagues west
of the Azores had been set down to a credulous eye, which had
been deceived by floating fields of vegetation.
There was no obstacle in the passing of similar
reports around the Bay of Biscay from the coasts of The Basques.
the Basques, and the story might be heard of Jean
de Echaide, who had found stores of stockfish off a land far
oceanward,—an exploit supposed to be commemorated in the island
of Stokafixia, which stands far away to the westward in the Bianco
map of 1436. All these tales of the early visits of the Basques to
what imaginative minds have supposed parts of the American coasts
derive much of their perennial charm from associations with a
remarkable people. There is indeed nothing improbable in a hardy
daring which could have borne the Basques to the Newfoundland
shores at almost any date earlier than the time of Columbus.
Fructuoso, writing as late as 1590, claimed that a
Portuguese navigator, João Vaz Cortereal, had Newfoundland
banks possibly
sailed to the codfish coast of Newfoundland as visited.
early as 1464, but Barrow seems to be the only
writer of recent times who has believed the tale, and Biddle and
Harrisse find no evidence to sustain it.
There is a statement recorded by Columbus, if we
may trust the account of the Historie, that a sailor Tartary supposed
to be seen.
at Santa Maria had told him how, being driven
westerly in a voyage to Ireland, he had seen land, which he then
thought to be Tartary. Some similar experiences were also told to
Columbus by Pieter de Velasco, of Galicia; and this land, according
to the account, would seem to have been the same sought at a later
day by the Cortereals (1500).
It is not easy to deal historically with long-held
traditions. The furbishers of transmitted lore easily Dubious pre-
Columbian
make it reflect what they bring to it. To find voyages.
illustrations in any inquiry is not so difficult if you
select what you wish, and discard all else, and the result of this
discriminating accretion often looks very plausible. Historical truth is
reached by balancing everything, and not by assimilating that which
easily suits. Almost all these discussions of pre-Columbian voyagings
to America afford illustrations of this perverted method. Events in
which there is no inherent untruth are not left with the natural
defense of probability, but are proved by deductions and inferences
which could just as well be applied to prove many things else, and
are indeed applied in a new way by every new upstart in such
inquiries. The story of each discoverer before Columbus has been
upheld by the stock intimation of white-bearded men, whose advent
is somehow mysteriously discovered to have left traces among the
aborigines of every section of the coast.
 OCEANIC CURRENTS.
[From Reclus's Amérique Boréale.]

There was another class of evidence which, as the Traces of a

Historie informs us, served some purpose in western land in
bringing conviction to the mind of Columbus. Such drift.
were the phenomenal washing ashore on European
coasts of unknown pines and other trees, sculptured logs, huge
bamboos, whose joints could be made into vessels to hold nine
bottles of wine, and dead bodies with strange, broad faces. Even
canoes, with living men in them of wonderful aspects, had at times
been reported as thrown upon the Atlantic islands. Such events had
not been unnoticed ever since the Canaries and the Azores had been
inhabited by a continental race, and conjectures had been rife long
before the time of Columbus that westerly winds had brought these
estrays from a distant land,—a belief more comprehensible at that
time than any dependence upon the unsuspected fact that it was the
oceanic currents, rather, which impelled these migratory objects.
It required the experiences of later Spanish
navigators along the Bahama Channel, and those Gulf Stream.
of the French and English farther north upon the
Banks of Newfoundland, before it became clear that the currents of
the Atlantic, grazing the Cape of Good Hope and whirling in the Gulf
of Mexico, sprayed in a curling fringe in the North Atlantic. This in a
measure became patent to Sir Humphrey Gilbert sixty or seventy
years after the death of Columbus.
If science had then been equal to the microscopic tasks which at this
day it imposes on itself, the question of western lands might have
been studied with an interest beyond what attached to the trunks of
trees, carved timbers, edible nuts, and seeds of alien plants, which
the Gulf Stream is still bringing to the shores of Europe. It might
have found in the dust settling upon the throngs of men in the Old
World, the shells of animalcules, differing from those known to the
observing eye in Europe, which, indeed, had been carried in the
upper currents of air from the banks of the Orinoco.

Once in Portugal, Columbus was brought in close

contact with that eager spirit of exploration which Influence of
Portuguese
had survived the example of Prince Henry and his discoveries upon
navigators. If Las Casas was well informed, these Columbus.
Portuguese discoveries were not without great
influence upon the Genoese's receptive mind. He Ephemerides of
was now where he could hear the fresh stories of Regiomontanus.
their extending acquaintance with the African
coast. His wife's sister, by the accepted accounts, had married Pedro
Correa, a navigator not without fame in those days, and a
companion in maritime inquiry upon whom Columbus could naturally
depend,—unless, as Harrisse decides, he was no navigator at all.
Columbus was also at hand to observe the growing skill in the arts of
navigation which gave the Portuguese their preëminence. He had
not been long in Lisbon when Regiomontanus gave a new power in
astronomical calculations of positions at sea by publishing his
Ephemerides, for the interval from 1475 to 1506, upon which
Columbus was yet to depend in his eventful voyage.
The most famous of the pupils of this German
mathematician was himself in Lisbon during the Martin Behaim.
years of Columbus's sojourn. We have no distinct
evidence that Martin Behaim, a Nuremberger, passed any courtesies
with the Genoese adventurer, but it is not improbable that he did.
His position was one that would attract Columbus, who might never
have been sought by Behaim. The Nuremberger's standing was,
indeed, such as to gain the attention of the Court, and he was
thought not unworthy to be joined with the two royal physicians,
Roderigo and Josef, on a commission to improve the astrolabe. Their
perfected results mark an epoch in the art of seamanship in that
age.
SAMPLES OF THE TABLES OF REGIOMONTANUS, 1474-1506.
 THE AFRICAN COAST, 1478.
[From Nordenskiöld's Facsimile Atlas.]

It was a new sensation when news came that at

last the Portuguese had crossed the equator, in Guinea coast,
1482.
pushing along the African coast. In January, 1482,
they had said their first mass on the Guinea coast, and the castle of
San Jorge da Mina was soon built under the new
impulse to enterprise which came with the The Congo
reached, 1484.
accession of João II. In 1484 they reached the
Congo, under the guidance of Diogo Cam, and Martin Behaim was of
his company.

MARTIN BEHAIM.
These voyages were not without strong allurements to the Genoese
sailor. He is thought to have been a participant in some of the later
cruises. The Historie claims that he began to reason, from his new
experiences, that if land could be discovered to the south there was
much the same chance of like discoveries in the west. But there
were experiences of other kinds which, in the interim, if we believe
the story, he underwent in the north.
 CHAPTER VII.
WAS COLUMBUS IN THE NORTH?
There is, in the minds of some inquirers into the
early discovery of America, no more pivotal Columbus
supposed to have
incident attaching to the career of Columbus than sailed beyond
an alleged voyage made to the vicinity of what is Iceland, 1477.
supposed to have been Iceland, in the assigned
year of 1477. The incident is surrounded with the confusion that
belongs to everything dependent on Columbus's own statements, or
on what is put forth as such.
Our chief knowledge of his voyage is in the doubtful Italian
rendering of the Historie of 1571, where, citing a memoir by
Columbus himself on the five habitable zones, the translator or
adapter of that book makes the Admiral say that "in February, 1477,
he sailed a hundred leagues beyond the island Tile, which lies under
the seventy-third parallel, and not under the sixty-third, as some
say." The only evidence that he saw Tile, in sailing beyond it, is in
what he further says, that he was able to ascertain that the tide rose
and fell twenty-six fathoms, which observation necessitates the
seeing of some land, whether Tile or not.
There is no land at all in the northern Atlantic
under 73°. Iceland stretches from 64° to 67°; Jan Inconsistencies in
the statement.
Mayen is too small for Columbus's further
description of the island, and is at 71°, and Spitzbergen is at 76°.
What Columbus says of the English of Bristol trading at this island
points to Iceland; and it is easy, if one will, to imagine a misprint of
the figures, an error of calculation, a carelessness of statement, or
even the disappearance, through some cataclysm, of the island, as
has been suggested.
 MAP OF OLAUS MAGNUS, 1539.
[From Dr. Brenner's Essay.]

Humboldt in his Cosmos quotes Columbus as saying of this voyage

near Thule that "the sea was not at that time covered with ice," and
he credits that statement to the same Tratado de las Cinco Zonas
Habitables of Columbus, and urges in proof that Finn Magnusen had
found in ancient historical sources that in February, 1477, ice had not
set in on the southern coast of that island.
Speaking of "Tile," the same narrative adds that "it
is west of the western verge of Ptolemy [that is, Thyle.
Ptolemy's world map], and larger than England."
This expression of its size could point only to Iceland, of all islands in
the northern seas.
There are elements in the story, however, not easily reconcilable with
what might be expected of an experienced mariner; and if the story
is true in its main purpose, there is little more in the details than the
careless inexactness, which characterizes a good many of the well-
authenticated asseverations of Columbus.
Again the narrative says, "It is true that Ptolemy's
Thule is where that geographer placed it, but that The Zeni's
Frisland.
it is now called Frislande." Does this mean that the
Zeni story had been a matter of common talk forty years after the
voyage to their Frisland had been made, and eighty-four years
before a later scion of the family published the remarkable narrative
in Venice, in 1558? It is possible that the maker of the Historie of
1571, in the way in which it was given to the world, had interpolated
this reference to the Frisland of the Zeni to help sustain the credit of
his own or the other book.
A voyage undertaken by Columbus to such high latitudes is rendered
in all respects doubtful, to say the least, from the fact that in 1492
Columbus detailed for the eyes of his sovereigns the unusual
advantages of the harbors of the new islands which he had
discovered, and added that he was entitled to express such an
opinion, because his exploration had extended from Guinea on the
south to England on the north. It was an occasion when he desired
to make his acquaintance seem as wide as the facts would warrant,
and yet he does not profess to have been farther north than
England. A hundred leagues, moreover, beyond Iceland might well
have carried him to the upper Greenland coast, but he makes no
mention of other land being seen in those high latitudes.
Thyle and Iceland are made different islands in the
Ptolemy of 1486, which, if it does not prove that Thyle and
Iceland.
Iceland was not then the same as Thyle in the
mind of geographers, shows that geographical confusion still
prevailed at the north. It may be further remarked that Muñoz and
others have found no time in Columbus's career to which this voyage
to the north could so easily pertain as to a period anterior to his
going to Portugal, and consequently some years before the 1477 of
the Historie.
A voyage to Iceland was certainly no new thing.
The English traded there, and a large commerce The English in
Iceland.
was maintained with it by Bristol, and had been for
many years. A story grew up at a later day, and
found expression in Gomara and Wytfliet, that in Kolno.
1476, the year before this alleged voyage of
Columbus, a Danish expedition, under the The Zeni.
command of the Pole Kolno, or Skolno, had found
in these northern regions an entrance to the straits of Anian, which
figure so constantly in later maps, and which opened a passage to
the Indies; but there seems to be no reason to believe that it had
any definite foundation, and it could hardly have been known to
Columbus. It is also easy to conjecture that Columbus had been
impelled to join some English trading vessel from Bristol, through
mere nautical curiosity, and even been urged by reports which may
have reached him of the northern explorations of the Zeni, long
before the accounts were printed. But if he knew anything, he either
treasured it up as a proof of his theories, not yet to be divulged,—
why is not clear,—or, what is vastly more probable, it never occurred
to him to associate any of these dim regions with the coasts of
Marco Polo's Cathay.
There was no lack of stories, even at this time, of
venturesome voyages west along the latitude of Madoc.
England and to the northwest, and of these tales
Columbus may possibly have heard. Such was the story which had
been obscurely recorded, that Madoc, a Welsh chieftain, in the later
years of the twelfth century had carried a colony westerly. Nor can it
be positively asserted that the Estotiland and Drogeo of the Zeni
narrative, then lying in the cabinet of an Italian family unknown, had
ever come to his knowledge.
There are stories in the Historie of reports which had reached him,
that mariners sailing for Ireland had been driven west, and had
sighted land which had been supposed to be Tartary, which at a later
day was thought to be the Baccalaos of the Cortereals.
The island of Bresil had been floating about the
Atlantic, usually in the latitude of Ireland, since the Bresil, or Brazil,
Island.
days when the maker of the Catalan planisphere, in
1375, placed it in that sea, and current stories of its existence
resulted, at a later day (1480), in the sending from Bristol of an
expedition of search, as has already been said.
Finn Magnusen among the Scandinavian writers,
and De Costa and others among Americans, have Did Columbus
land on Thule?
thought it probable that Columbus landed at
Hualfiord, in Iceland. Columbus, however, does not give sufficient
ground for any such inference. He says he went beyond Thule, not
to it, whatever Thule was, and we only know by his observations on
the tides, that he approached dry land.
Laing, in his introduction to the Heimskringla, says
confidently that Columbus "came to Iceland from Bishop Magnus in
Iceland.
Bristol, in 1477, on purpose to gain nautical
information,"—an inference merely,—"and must have heard of the
written accounts of the Norse discoveries recorded in" the Codex
Flatoyensis. Laing says again that as Bishop Magnus is known to
have been in Iceland in the spring of 1477, "it is presumed Columbus
must have met and conversed with him"!
A great deal turns on this purely imaginary conversation, and the
possibilities of its scope.
The listening Columbus might, indeed, have heard
of Irish monks and their followers, who had been The Norse in
Iceland.
found in Iceland by the first Norse visitors, six
hundred years before, if perchance the traditions of
them had been preserved, and these may even Eric the Red.
have included the somewhat vague stories of visits
to a country somewhere, which they called Ireland Greenland.
the Great. Possibly, too, there were stories told at the firesides of the
adventures of a sea-rover, Gunnbiorn by name, who had been driven
westerly from Iceland and had seen a strange land, which after
some years was visited by Eric the Red; and there might have been
wondrous stories told of this same land, which Eric had called
Greenland, in order to lure settlers, where there is some reason to
believe yet earlier wanderers had found a home.
There mightpossibly have been shown to Columbus
an old manuscript chronicle of the kings of Norway, Heimskringla.
which they called the Heimskringla, and which had
been written by Snorre Sturlason in the thirteenth Position of
century; and if he had turned the leaves with any Greenland.
curiosity, he could have read, or have had
translated for him, accounts of the Norse Thought to be a
part of Europe.
colonization of Greenland in the ninth century.
Where, then, was this Greenland? Could it possibly have had any
connection with that Cathay of Marco Polo, so real in the vision of
Columbus, and which was supposed to lie above India in the higher
latitudes? As a student of contemporary cartography, Columbus
would have answered such a question readily, had it been
suggested; for he would have known that Greenland had been
represented in all the maps, since it was first recognized at all, as
merely an extended peninsula of Scandinavia, made by a southward
twist to enfold a northern sea, in which Iceland lay. One certainly
cannot venture to say how far Columbus may have had an
acquaintance with the cartographical repertories, more or less well
stocked, as they doubtless were, in the great commercial centres of
maritime Europe, but the knowledge which we to-day have in detail
could hardly have been otherwise than a common possession among
students of geography then. We comprehend now how, as far back
as 1427, a map of Claudius Clavus showed Greenland as this
peninsular adjunct to the northwest of Europe,—a view enforced
also in a map of 1447, in the Pitti palace, and in one which
Nordenskiöld recently found in a Codex of Ptolemy at Warsaw, dated
in 1467. A few years later, and certainly before Columbus could have
gone on this voyage, we find a map which it is more probable he
could have known, and that is the engraved one of Nicholas Donis,
drawn presumably in 1471, and later included in the edition of
Ptolemy published at Ulm in 1482. The same European connection is
here maintained. Again it is represented in the map of Henricus
Martellus (1489-90), in a way that produced a succession of maps,
which till long after the death of Columbus continued to make this
Norse colony a territorial appendage of Scandinavian Europe,
betraying not the slightest symptom of a belief that Eric the Red had
strayed beyond the circle of European connections.

CLAUDIUS CLAVUS, 1427.

[From Nordenskiöld's Studien.]
 BORDONE, 1528.
[Greenland is the Northernmost Peninsula of N. W. Europe.]

It is only when we get down to the later years of

Columbus's life that we find, on a Portuguese chart Made a Part of
Asia.
of 1503, a glimmer of the truth, and this only
transiently, though the conception of the mariners, upon which this
map was based, probably associated Greenland with the Asiatic
main, as Ruysch certainly did, by a bold effort to reconcile the Norse
traditions with the new views of his time, when he produced the first
engraved map of the discoveries of Columbus and Cabot in the
Roman Ptolemy of 1508.
It is thus beyond dispute that if Columbus
entertained any views as to the geographical Again made a part
of Europe.
relations of Greenland, which had been practically
lost to Europe since communication with it ceased, earlier in the
fifteenth century, they were simply those of a peninsula of northern
Europe, which could have no connection with any country lying
beyond the Atlantic; for it was not till after his death that any
general conception of it associated with the Asiatic main arose. It is
quite certain, however, that as the conception began to prevail, after
the discovery of the South Sea by Balboa, in 1513, that an
interjacent new world had really been found, there was a tendency,
as shown in the map of Thorne (1527), representing current views in
Spain, and in those of Finæus (1531), Ziegler (1532), Mercator
(1538), and Bordone (1528-1547), to relegate the position of
Greenland to a peninsular connection with Europe.
There is a curious instance of the evolution of the correct idea in the
Ptolemy of 1525, and repeated in the same plate as used in the
editions of 1535 and 1545. The map was originally engraved to show
"Gronlandia" as a European peninsula, but apparently, at a later
stage, the word Gronlandia was cut in the corner beside the sketch
of an elephant, and farther west, as if to indicate its transoceanic
and Asiatic situation, though there was no attempt to draw in a
coast line.
Later in the century there was a strife of opinion
between the geographers of the north, as Later diverse
views.
represented in the Olaus Magnus map of 1567,
who disconnected the country from Europe, and those of the south,
who still united Greenland with Scandinavia, as was done in the
Zeno map of 1558. By this time, however, the southern geographers
had begun to doubt, and after 1540 we find Labrador and Greenland
put in close proximity in many of their maps; and in this the editors
of the Ptolemy of 1561 agreed, when they altered their reëngraved
map—as the plate shows—in a way to disconnect Greenland from
Scandinavia.
It is not necessary to trace the cartographical history of Greenland to
a later day. It is manifest that it was long after Columbus's death
when the question was raised of its having any other connection
than with Europe, and Columbus could have learned in Iceland
nothing to suggest to him that the land of Eric the Red had any
connection with the western shores of Asia, of which he was
dreaming.
If any of the learned men in Iceland had referred Columbus once
more to the Heimskringla, it would have been to the brief entry
which it shows in the records as the leading Norse
historian made it, of the story of the discovery of Discovery of
Vinland.
Vinland. There he would have read, "Leif also
found Vinland the Good," and he could have read nothing more.
There was nothing in this to excite the most vivid imagination as to
place or direction.
It was not till a time long after the period of
Columbus that, so far as we know, any Scandinavian
views of Vinland.
cartographical records of the discoveries associated
with the Vinland voyages were made in the north;
and not till the discoveries of Columbus and his Stephanius's
1570.
map,

successors were a common inheritance in Europe

did some of the northern geographers, in 1570, undertake to
reconcile the tales of the sagas with the new beliefs. The testimony
of these later maps is presumably the transmitted view then held in
the north from the interpretation of the Norse sagas in the light of
later knowledge. This testimony is that the "America" of the
Spaniards, including Terra Florida and the "Albania" of the English,
was a territory south of the Norse region and beyond a separating
water, very likely that of Davis' Straits. The map of Sigurd Stephanius
of this date (1570) puts Vinland north of the Straits of Belle Isle, and
makes it end at the south in a "wild sea," which separates it [B of
map] from "America." Torfæus quotes Torlacius as saying that this
map of Stephanius's was drawn from ancient Icelandic records. If
this cartographical record has its apparent value, it is not likely that
Columbus could have seen in it anything more than a manifestation
of that vague boreal region which was far remote from the thoughts
which possessed him, in seeking a way to India over against Spain.
 SIGURD STEPHANIUS, 1570.

Beside the scant historic record respecting Vinland Dubious sagas.

which has been cited from the Heimskringla, it is
further possible that Columbus may have seen that series of sagas
which had come down in oral shape to the twelfth century. At this
period put into writing, two hundred years after the events of the
Vinland voyages, there are none of the manuscript copies of these
sagas now existing which go back of the fourteenth century. This
rendering of the old sagas into script came at a time when, in
addition to the inevitable transformations of long oral tradition, there
was superadded the romancing spirit then rife in the north, and
which had come to them from the south of Europe. The result of this
blending of confused tradition with the romancing of the period of
the written preservation has thrown, even among the Scandinavians
themselves, a shade of doubt, more or less intense at times, which
envelops the saga record with much that is indistinguishable from
myth, leaving little but the general drift of the story to be held of the
nature of a historic record. The Icelandic editor of Egel's saga,
published at Reikjavik in 1856, acknowledges this unavoidable reflex
of the times when the sagas were reduced to writing, and the most
experienced of the recent writers on Greenland, Henrik Rink, has
allowed the untrustworthiness of the sagas except for their general
scope.
Less than a hundred years before the alleged visit
of Columbus to Thule, there had been a Codex
Flatoyensis.
compilation of some of the early sagas, and this
Codex Flatoyensis is the only authority which we
have for any details of the Vinland voyages. It is Leif Erikson.
possible that the manuscript now known is but one copy of several
or many which may have been made at an early period, not
preceding, however, the twelfth century, when writing was
introduced. This particular manuscript was discovered in an Icelandic
monastery in the seventeenth century, and there is no evidence of
its being known before. Of course it is possible that copies may have
been in the hands of learned Icelanders at the time of Columbus's
supposed voyage to the north, and he may have heard of it, or have
had parts of it read to him. The collection is recognized by
Scandinavian writers as being the most confused and incongruous of
similar records; and it is out of such romancing, traditionary, and
conflicting recitals that the story of the Norse voyages to Vinland is
made, if it is made at all. The sagas say that it was sixteen winters
after the settlement of Greenland that Leif went to Norway, and in
the next year he sailed to Vinland. These are the data from which
the year A. D. 1000 has been deduced as that of the beginning of
the Vinland voyages. The principal events are to be traced in the
saga of Eric the Red, which, in the judgment of Rask, a leading
Norse authority, is "somewhat fabulous, written long after the event,
and taken from tradition."
Such, then, was the record which, if it ever came
to the notice of Columbus, was little suited to make Peringskiöld's
edition of the
upon him any impression to be associated in his sagas.
mind with the Asia of his dreams. Humboldt,
discussing the chances of Columbus's gaining any knowledge of the
story, thinks that when the Spanish Crown was contesting with the
heirs of the Admiral his rights of discovery, the citing of these
northern experiences of Columbus would have been in the Crown's
favor, if there had been any conception at that time that the Norse
discoveries, even if known to general Europe, had any relation to the
geographical problems then under discussion. Similar views have
been expressed by Wheaton and Prescott, and there is no evidence
that up to the time of Columbus an acquaintance with the Vinland
story had ever entered into the body of historical knowledge
possessed by Europeans in general. The scant references in the
manuscripts of Adam of Bremen (A. D. 1073), of Ordericus Vitalis (A.
D. 1140), and of Saxo Grammaticus (A. D. 1200), were not likely to
be widely comprehended, even if they were at all known, and a
close scrutiny of the literature of the subject does not seem to
indicate that there was any considerable means of propagating a
knowledge of the sagas before Peringskiöld printed them in 1697,
two hundred years after the time of Columbus. This editor inserted
them in an edition of the Heimskringla and concealed the patchwork.
This deception caused it afterwards to be supposed that the
accounts in the Heimskringla had been interpolated by some later
reviser of the chronicle; but the truth regarding Peringskiöld's action
was ultimately known.
Basing, then, their investigation on a narrative
confessedly confused and unauthentic, modern Probabilities.
writers have sought to determine with precision the
fact of Norse visits to British America, and to identify the localities.
The fact that every investigator finds geographical correspondences
where he likes, and quite independently of all others, is testimony of
itself to the confused condition of the story. The soil of the United
States and Nova Scotia contiguous to the Atlantic may now safely be
said to have been examined by competent critics sufficiently to
affirm that no archæological trace of the presence of the Norse here
is discernible. As to such a forbidding coast as that of Labrador,
there has been as yet no such familiarity with it by trained
archæologists as to render it reasonably certain that some trace may
not be found there, and on this account George Bancroft allows the
possibility that the Norse may have reached that coast. There
remains, then, no evidence beyond a strong probability that the
Norse from Greenland crossed Davis' Straits and followed south the
American coast. That indisputable archæological proofs may yet be
found to establish the fact of their southern course and sojourn is
certainly possible. Meanwhile we must be content that there is no
testimony satisfactory to a careful historical student, that this course
and such sojourn ever took place. A belief in it must rest on the
probabilities of the case.
Many writers upon the Norseman discovery would do well to
remember the advice of Ampère to present as doubtful what is true,
sooner than to give as true what is doubtful.
"Ignorance," says Muñoz, in speaking of the treacherous grounds of
unsupported narrative, "is generally accompanied by vanity and
temerity."
It is an obvious and alluring supposition that this
story should have been presented to Columbus, Did Columbus
hear of the saga
whatever the effect may have been on his mind. stories?
Lowell in a poem pardonably pictures him as
saying:—
 "I brooded on the wise Athenian's tale
Of happy Atlantis; and heard Björne's keel
Crunch the gray pebbles of the Vinland shore,
For I believed the poets."

But the belief is only a proposition. Rafn and other extreme

advocates of the Norse discovery have made as much as they could
of the supposition of Columbus's cognizance of the Norse voyages.
Laing seems confident that this contact must have happened. The
question, however, must remain unsettled; and whether Columbus
landed in Iceland or not, and whether the bruit of the Norse
expeditions struck his ears elsewhere or not, the fact of his never
mentioning them, when he summoned every supposable evidence to
induce acceptance of his views, seems to be enough to show at least
that to a mind possessed as his was of the scheme of finding India
by the west the stories of such northern wandering offered no
suggestion applicable to his purpose. It is, moreover, inconceivable
that Columbus should have taken a course southwest from the
Canaries, if he had been prompted in any way by tidings of land in
the northwest.
 CHAPTER VIII.
COLUMBUS LEAVES PORTUGAL FOR SPAIN.
It is a rather striking fact, as Harrisse puts it, that
we cannot place with an exact date any event in Columbus's
obscure record,
Columbus's life from August 7, 1473, when a 1473-1487.
document shows him to have been in Savona, Italy,
till he received at Cordoba, Spain, from the treasurer of the Catholic
sovereigns, his first gratuity on May 5, 1487, as is shown by the
entry in the books, "given this day 3,000 maravedis," about $18, "to
Cristobal Colomo, a stranger." The events of this period of about
fourteen years were those which made possible his later career. The
incidents connected with this time have become the shuttle-cocks
which have been driven backward and forward in their chronological
bearings, by all who have undertaken to study the details of this part
of Columbus's life. It is nearly as true now as it was when Prescott
wrote, that "the discrepancies among the earliest authorities are
such as to render hopeless any attempt to settle with precision the
chronology of Columbus's movements previous to his first voyage."
The motives which induced him to abandon
Portugal, where he had married, and where he had His motives for
leaving Portugal.
apparently found not a little to reconcile him to his
exile, are not obscure ones as detailed in the
ordinary accounts of his life. All these narratives Chief sources of
our knowledge.
are in the main based, first, on the Historie (1571);
secondly, on the great historical work of Joam de Barros, pertaining
to the discoveries of the Portuguese in the East Indies, first
published in 1552, and still holding probably the loftiest position in
the historical literature of that country; and, finally, on the lives of
João II., then monarch of Portugal, by Ruy de Pina and by
Vasconcellos. The latter borrowing in the main from the former, was
exclusively used by Irving. Las Casas apparently depended on Barros
as well as on the Historie. It is necessary to reconcile their
statements, as well as it can be done, to get even an inductive view
of the events concerned.
The treatment of the subject by Irving would make it certain that it
was a new confidence in the ability to make long voyages, inspired
by the improvements of the astrolabe as directed by Behaim, that
first gave Columbus the assurance to ask for royal patronage of the
maritime scheme which had been developing in his mind.
Just what constituted the acquaintance of
Columbus with Behaim is not clearly established. Columbus and
Behaim.
Herrera speaks of them as friends. Humboldt thinks
some intimacy between them may have existed, but finds no
decisive proof of it. Behaim had spent much of his life in Lisbon and
in the Azores, and there are some striking correspondences in their
careers, if we accept the usual accounts. They were born and died in
the same year. Each lived for a while on an Atlantic island, the
Nuremberger at Fayal, and the Genoese at Porto Santo; and each
married the daughter of the governor of his respective island. They
pursued their nautical studies at the same time in Lisbon, and the
same physicians who reported to the Portuguese king upon
Columbus's scheme of westward sailing were engaged with Behaim
in perfecting the sea astrolabe.
The account of the audience with the king which
we find in the Historie is to the effect that Columbus and the
king of Portugal.
Columbus finally succeeded in inducing João to
believe in the practicability of a western passage to Asia; but that
the monarch could not be brought to assent to all the titular and
pecuniary rewards which Columbus contended for as emoluments of
success, and that a commission, to whom the monarch referred the
project, pronounced the views of Columbus simply chimerical. Barros
represents that the advances of Columbus were altogether too
arrogant and fantastic ever to have gained the consideration of the
king, who easily disposed of the Genoese's pretentious importunities
by throwing the burden of denial upon a commission. This body
consisted of the two physicians of the royal household, already
mentioned, Roderigo and Josef, to whom was added Cazadilla, the
Bishop of Ceuta.
Vasconcellos's addition to this story, which he derived almost entirely
from Ruy de Pina, Resende, and Barros, is that there was
subsequently another reference to a royal council, in which the
subject was discussed in arguments, of which that historian
preserves some reports. This discussion went farther than was
perhaps intended, since Cazadilla proceeded to discourage all
attempts at exploration even by the African route, as imperiling the
safety of the state, because of the money which was required; and
because it kept at too great a distance for an emergency a
considerable force in ships and men. In fact the drift of the debate
seems to have ignored the main projects as of little moment and as
too visionary, and the energy of the hour was centered in a rallying
speech made by the Count of Villa Real, who endeavored to save the
interests of African exploration. The count's speech quite
accomplished its purpose, if we can trust the reports, since it
reassured the rather drooping energies of the king, and induced
some active measures to reach the extremity of Africa.

Diaz's African
voyage, 1486.

Passes the Cape.

 PORTUGUESE MAPPEMONDE, 1490.
[Sketched from the original MS. in the British Museum.]

In August, 1486, Bartholomew Diaz, the most eminent of a line of

Portuguese navigators, had departed on the African route, with two
consorts. As he neared the latitude of the looked-for Cape, he was
driven south, and forced away from the land, by a storm. When he
was enabled to return on his track he struck the coast, really to the
eastward of the true cape, though he did not at the time know it.
This was in May, 1487. His crew being unwilling to proceed farther,
he finally turned westerly, and in due time discovered what he had
done. The first passage of the Cape was thus made while sailing
west, just as, possibly, the mariners of the Indian seas may have
done. In December he was back in Lisbon with the exhilarating
news, and it was probably conveyed to Columbus, who was then in
Spain, by his brother Bartholomew, the companion of Diaz in this
eventful voyage, as Las Casas discovered by an entry made by
Bartholomew himself in a copy of D'Ailly's Imago Mundi. Thirty years
before, as we have seen, Fra Mauro had prefigured the Cape in his
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