The development of the anthropomorphic flutist robot at Waseda University

The development of the flutist robot at Waseda University since 1990 has enabled a better understanding of the motor control functions required for playing the flute. Moreover, it has introduced novel ways of interaction between human beings and humanoid robots such as: performing a musical score together in real time and transferring skills to flutist beginners. In this paper, the development of the Waseda Flutist Robot No. 4 Refined (WF-4R) is presented. The mechanical design of the components of the robot and the control architecture are detailed. In order to efficiently control and coordinate the motion of each of the simulated organs of the robot, an algorithm was proposed to extract the features required to perform a score based on human performance. This algorithm was divided into two phases: sound calibration and music score performance. Finally, an experimental setup was done to verify the effectiveness of each of the phases by analyzing the time and frequency domain responses from recordings of the robot performances. The WF-4R is able to perform from musical scores quite similar to human.