Most humanoid robots developed over the past few decades have had stiff joints, and that’s a problem if they’re ever going to interact with people.
Their unyielding arms and legs could injury a person if they accidentally whack someone, or if they lose balance and fall down. Lately there’s been a growing interest in developing robotic joints with variable stiffness, which would improve their safety, but so far few groups have built a complete robot. Now a team from the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) is approaching that goal with their robot COMAN (COmpliant huMANoid).
Modeled on a four-year-old child, COMAN is 94.5 cm tall (from foot to neck) and weighs 31.2 kg. It features 25 degrees of freedom (DOF), and a combination of stiff and compliant joints (see diagram below). The compliant joints (14 DOF) rely on series elastic actuators. These actuators—a custom design created by the IIT team—are applied to the the flexion/extension of the arms and legs, and are both small and modular, which makes them ideal for multi-DOF robots like humanoids. The researchers have also built custom torque sensors for each of the elastic joints, including a 6-axis force/torque sensor for the ankle joints. Development of the robot is funded, in part, by the European AMARSI project.
So what exactly does this compliance get you? The elastic actuators literally add a spring to COMAN’s step: in walking experiments the robot’s hardware naturally absorbed the ground reaction forces of each footstep “without additional control enforcement, which is difficult to be realized by the stiff actuated humanoids if no particular foot mechanism or active control is applied.” And when they implemented a stabilization control method, the robot steadied itself on a moving platform and when it was knocked around.
COMAN’s internal structure is made of titanium alloy, stainless steel, and aluminum alloy, covered by an ABS plastic exoskeleton. The images below show the location and structure of the series elastic actuators (SEA) on the robot’s hips, knees, ankles, shoulders, and elbows.
In the course of developing their own compliant humanoid, the team also devised a method for determining the optimal joint elasticity, which until now has largely been a time-consuming trial and error process with scant documentation. Their method provides a framework for other researchers exploring compliant robots and is based on resonance analysis and energy storage maximization criteria.
The Latest Bing News on:
Humanoid Robot
- Uber to test delivering food with robotson May 13, 2022 at 5:30 am
Uber is the latest company to try delivering food to people’s homes with robots. The company, which has long claimed that automation is key to its future profitability, is launching two test ...
- DeepMind’s new AI can perform over 600 tasks, from playing games to controlling robotson May 13, 2022 at 5:15 am
Alphabet-backed research lab DeepMind created an AI system, Gato, that can perform hundreds of tasks ranging from controlling a robot to analyzing text.
- Leave It To The Robots: What The Jetsons Got Right About AIon May 13, 2022 at 3:00 am
While the show exaggerated futuristic technology, it can help us think about the real role AI can and should play in the workforce.
- Hospitality Robots Market Expected to Reach $3,083 Million by 2030 Allied Market Research.on May 13, 2022 at 2:46 am
and these robots are manufactured according the requirements of the clients. For instance, Pepper, a humanoid robot developed by SoftBank Robotics, wore a mask, greeted new guests in the lobby, and ...
- RoboSkin offers human-like sensing for robotson May 13, 2022 at 1:06 am
As new robot solutions are developed many will need to be able to interact and learn by sense of touch and feel. Flexible and reliable, BeBop Sensors’ RoboSkin has been developed to provide this ...
- Who Is More Able to Connect with Robots?on May 12, 2022 at 7:10 am
looking carefully at the role that human attachment patterns play in mediating the experience of human–robot cohabitation. In their study, humans were generally categorized into displaying one of four ...
- Do we really need humanoid robots after all?on May 11, 2022 at 11:30 am
Industrial robots have virtually eliminated the human workforce from the car assembly line, but could they realistically replace all human jobs? It’s unlikely, thinks Steven Cutts ...
- Rodney Brooks and Clara Vu will discuss human-robot interaction at TC Sessions: Robotics 2022on May 10, 2022 at 8:34 am
Robots have transformed automation across industries such as agtech, automotive, logistics, manufacturing and warehousing. Yet even the most advanced robots typically work in restricted workcells away ...
- Meet the Astonishing Human-Like Robot Whose Facial Expressions Melt People's Heartson May 6, 2022 at 7:05 am
With uncanny empathy and mannerisms that evoke curiosity and compassion, this robot is truly groundbreaking.The "future of face robotics," as it's called, is Ameca, dreamed up by by UK artificial ...
- Japan Has a Humanoid Robot That Fixes High-Voltage Train Lineson May 5, 2022 at 9:23 am
Electrified rail is a brilliant solution to mass transit, and something Japan has thoroughly put into practice. But there still remains the question of how to repair the catenaries that power electric ...
The Latest Google Headlines on:
Humanoid Robot
[/vc_column_text]
The Latest Bing News on:
Human-like robots
- RoboSkin offers human-like sensing for robotson May 13, 2022 at 1:06 am
As new robot solutions are developed many will need to be able to interact and learn by sense of touch and feel. Flexible and reliable, BeBop Sensors’ RoboSkin has been developed to provide this ...
- RGo Robotics exits stealth mode with $20M in fundingon May 9, 2022 at 5:00 am
That is what RGo Robotics is looking to change. RGo Robotics develops disruptive AI-powered technology for autonomous mobile robots, for greater, more “human-like” perception. They leveraged advanced ...
- Meet the Astonishing Human-Like Robot Whose Facial Expressions Melt People's Heartson May 6, 2022 at 7:05 am
With uncanny empathy and mannerisms that evoke curiosity and compassion, this robot is truly groundbreaking.The "future of face robotics," as it's called, is Ameca, dreamed up by by UK artificial ...
- Programming agilityon May 5, 2022 at 10:49 am
It’s about programming the robots to comprehend the complexities of their environment and act accordingly so that they don’t fall over an ant hill or get tripped up by the dog. “It’s like a weird ...
- An inside look at the robotic revolution — and what it all means for you (Part II)on May 3, 2022 at 9:31 pm
Carlos Fernández – AutoStore: Robots will still keep certain roles, meaning there won’t be human-like robots capable of doing every possible job in a warehouse. But they’ll be a lot better at the ...
- Semiconductors Enable Human-Like Learning in Robotson May 3, 2022 at 5:00 pm
Scientists believe that in the future robots will be able to think and reason like humans, though technology does not yet exist to fully support this vision. Researchers in Germany have made ...
- ‘Tainted kids,’ other odd phrases cropping up in autism studieson May 2, 2022 at 12:49 pm
In April, developmental neuropsychologist Dorothy Bishop noticed strange phrases in a 2021 study of autistic children who interacted with a human-like robot. It described the children as “tainted kids ...
- Amazing video shows a tiny jumping robot like nothing you’ve ever seenon April 29, 2022 at 7:04 pm
Most of the robots that we’ve created today have used biological means in their design. Many are designed to be bipedal, taking on a human-like resemblance. When designing robots for jumping ...