My Advanced Realistic Humanoid Robots Project

[Artbyrobot]

I have been chipping away at building some humanoid robots for some years now and wanted to share my build with you all in order to give away my ideas freely as well as pick up some ideas from the community. It's certainly a hard project in some ways. My goal is to have the robots pass for human in appearance and movement. I want them to be able to do chores, manufacture products, and make more robots just like themselves.

Here's the CAD design:

 

[ahsrabrifat]

Looks Gigantic! Is it still in the designing phase?

 

[rjenkinsgb]

Looking at your other posts, you are unfortunately on a dead-end approach, that can never be more than an animatronic type figure.

Artbyrobot - Home of the LarryBot!

www.artbyrobot.com

/diy/ - My Advanced Realistic Humanoid Robots Project - #3 - Do It Yourself - 4chan

My Advanced Realistic Humanoid Robots Project - #3 - "/diy/ - Do It Yourself" is 4chan's imageboard for DIY/do it yourself projects, home improvement, and makers.

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That type of setup has also been done already - Inmoov

InMoov - home - InMoov

inmoov.fr

This was it's state ten years ago! He's now looking at realistic skin.

You are working on a common misconception is that human / animal joints can be emulated with small but highly geared motors.

That simply does not work in reality, as biological joints operated by muscles are force-based, not position-based.
The position control is by feedback through your nervous system.

Every joint in a human/animal body can be back-driven by force applied against it, and that capability is essential for lifelike movements and manipulation capability.

Functional joints use torque motors - high power with very low gear ratio that can be back-driven with near zero resistance when not being driven, plus (or torque - current - feedback as well as position feedback.

 

[Artbyrobot]

Looks Gigantic! Is it still in the designing phase?

It should be like 5'9" I think based on my pvc medical skeleton height. Assuming you refer to CAD design, no, I've been prototyping for some time since the CAD was done and occasionally tweak the CAD according to new findings.

Looking at your other posts, you are unfortunately on a dead-end approach, that can never be more than an animatronic type figure.

That's a commonly held view and you may be right. Hopefully, with prototyping and trial and error I can get past any dead ends I am failing to see so far.

That type of setup has also been done already - Inmoov

Yes I'm aware of the Inmoov project. It is really cool. I definitely have a lot of similar principles employed to the approach they use.

He's now looking at realistic skin.

Wow that I did not hear about. I wonder how they can pull that off since the overall silhoutte is not that close to human in their project. They'd have to downscale in alot of areas to pull off a realistic look with realistic skin.

You are working on a common misconception is that human / animal joints can be emulated with small but highly geared motors.

Every joint in a human/animal body can be back-driven by force applied against it, and that capability is essential for lifelike movements and manipulation capability.

Functional joints use torque motors - high power with very low gear ratio that can be back-driven with near zero resistance when not being driven, plus (or torque - current - feedback as well as position feedback.

My highly geared motors I think will be decently back drive-able with fairly low resistance. I'm using pulley based downgearing to achieve this. Although the primary reason was to cut down on gear noise since I want it to do useful work in doors as silently as possible. The gear noise is a deal breaker for me. Highly geared motors with metal gearing are not back drive-able but highly downgeared motors with pulley based downgearing I think are back drive-able but will have to test the backdriveability more to have more insight into this part.

The torque motors you speak of would be nice to use if it were not for the space constraints I am dealing with. I don't think I can use them for that reason in my design.

That simply does not work in reality, as biological joints operated by muscles are force-based, not position-based.
The position control is by feedback through your nervous system.

I'm don't I understand this part of what you said. can you clarify this part more?

Anyways, thanks for this well thought out response!

 

[Artbyrobot]

Here's a finished hand with spandex ligaments adhesive transfer taped and sewn into place. I prefer the skeleton system of a human over the hinge and rod approach although I plan to try to build at least one robot with the latter to compare the two approaches. They each seem to have pros and cons.

 

[jpanhalt]

This appears to be a long term porject that has been discussed on several othe sites, such as:

Other sites:
[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/my-advanced-realistic-humanoid-robots-project/[/URL]
[URL unfurl="true"]https://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/threads/my-advanced-realistic-humanoid-robots-project.205424/[/URL]
[MEDIA=reddit]robotics/comments/vll03s/my_advanced_realistic_humanoid_robot_project_june[/MEDIA]
[URL unfurl="true"]https://forum.arduino.cc/t/my-advanced-realistic-humanoid-robot-project/1006814[/URL]
[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.robot-forum.com/robotforum/thread/41821-my-advanced-realistic-humanoid-robot-project/[/URL]
[URL unfurl="true"]https://humanoidable.com/threads/my-advanced-realistic-humanoid-robots-project.54/#post-113[/URL]
[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.societyofrobots.com/robotforum/index.php?topic=18209.0#google_vignette[/URL]
[MEDIA=youtube]wNIVozQ3FEQ[/MEDIA]

Progress appears to have been quite slow, but it is a complex project.

 

[Artbyrobot]

This appears to be a long term porject that has been discussed on several othe sites, such as:

Other sites:
[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/my-advanced-realistic-humanoid-robots-project/[/URL]
[URL unfurl="true"]https://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/threads/my-advanced-realistic-humanoid-robots-project.205424/[/URL]
[MEDIA=reddit]robotics/comments/vll03s/my_advanced_realistic_humanoid_robot_project_june[/MEDIA]
[URL unfurl="true"]https://forum.arduino.cc/t/my-advanced-realistic-humanoid-robot-project/1006814[/URL]
[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.robot-forum.com/robotforum/thread/41821-my-advanced-realistic-humanoid-robot-project/[/URL]
[URL unfurl="true"]https://humanoidable.com/threads/my-advanced-realistic-humanoid-robots-project.54/#post-113[/URL]
[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.societyofrobots.com/robotforum/index.php?topic=18209.0#google_vignette[/URL]
[MEDIA=youtube]wNIVozQ3FEQ[/MEDIA]

Progress appears to have been quite slow, but it is a complex project.

Yeah that is all correct. I enjoy getting fresh eyes on it and giving and receiving fresh ideas regularly. Interacting with communities with overlapping areas of expertise is valuable and can prevent me from getting blind sided by tapping into the collective knowledge of many people which can supplement my limited knowledge and IQ points to hopefully push through the various obstacles.

 

[Artbyrobot]

Every joint in a human/animal body can be back-driven by force applied against it, and that capability is essential for lifelike movements and manipulation capability.

While I think my joints will be backdriveable due to my pulley downgearing, I do have a question on this though: what is the significance of backdriveability for the joints? I'm guessing just so like if it fell the gearing doesn't just break but can turn in wrong direction without shearing gears off? Because if the opposite direction turning is needed, it can be actively reversed in direction to simulate backdriveability even with metal downgearing at high ratios. But if this response was not quick enough in a fall, I guess things break. Is that the main issue or are there others?