My primary inspiration for the design was [1]. The source does not provide many details of the mechanical construction and dimensions so I had to experiment but it wasn’t hard. The drawing of my final design is below. The dimensions depend on the size of the servos used. I used standard size servos which yields robot about 12 cm long and 9 cm wide. It would be interesting to use smaller servos and make a tiny “spider” robot.
I choose to develop my own controller board instead of using a commercial one, such as BasicX. This was mainly because of my desire to get some experience with Atmel microcontrollers and also to cut down the price. Typical controller costs about 100 USD while the Atmel Tiny 2313 MCU costs about 4 dollars and with all the other parts the price of the board is still below 15 USD.
Basic theory
Don’t worry, I don’t like theory any more than you do, so this will be just brief description of the things you could find helpful.
The servos
Servo is used primarily in radio controlled models (airplanes, cars, ships etc.) but they are also very popular in robotics. The advantage is wide choice of sizes and strengths, low price and easy control with microcontrollers. There are tiny servos weighting some 5 grams but also huge ones with metal gears able to lift several kilograms on its lever.
Cheapest servo can be obtained for about $10 and for our purpose it will suffice. The prototype robot uses Hitec HS300 servos which are about 10 years old, have served their duty in various radio controlled airplanes and survived several crashes, yet they still work very well. From today’s market Hitec HS311 can be a good choice, but you can also use any of the less-known brands without problem.
Important servo parameters are:
Suppy voltage – 5 V (max 6V for some types), required current is about 1A
Strength – given in N . cm, for standard size servo typically 30 N . cm.
Speed - given in degrees per second, typically about 0,15 s for 60 degree travel
Standard size servo is 40x20x36 mm and weights about 50 grams. There is cable with 3 strands, usually red (+), black (ground) and yellow or orange (signal for the servo).
Position of the servo lever is controlled by input signal which should have frequency of 50 Hz and pulses with length between 1 and 2 ms. change of the pulse length changes the position of the servo lever. See the picture:
The mechanical calculations for the servos in this kind of robot can be found in [1]. For me it was sufficient to find out that the robot with 10 years old servos walks. How long the servos will survive is a different question, but it doesn’t seem to me that they would be overloaded when the robot is walking.
- Design of the robot
How to Design a Robot
Robots have long captured our imagination. They have taken on many forms over the years. However, working robots are normally designed not as a multitasking device that resembles a human being, but a device that is created to perform one or two specific tasks with a high degree of efficiency. If you are handy with electronics and want to try your hand at designing your own robot to handle some simple task, here are some ideas on how to do just that
Instructions
Basic Knowledge of Electronics
Step1:
Define the function or functions that the robot will perform. Knowing what the device is to accomplish is the first step in determining what elements must go into the design. For example, a robot that is expected to pick up objects will need to be designed with an arm mechanism. A robot that is expected to sweep or vacuum will require some type of wheels or locomotion mechanism to move across the floor.
Step 2:
Create a rough sketch of the robot’s exterior. The design does not have to be perfect at this point. A rough sketch will serve as the basis for the general look of the device that you can refine as you move deeper into the project.
Step 3;
Determine the internal components that will necessary to make the robot operational. This may include circuit boards, wiring, and various other components. Compile a list on a notepad of the necessary components and how they would relate to one another. Knowing what you need for the internal workings will make it easier to determine how big the body of the robot will have to be in order to include all necessary elements.
Step 4:
Address the layout of the interior components for the robot. The placement of components may be influenced by some of the exterior features. If the robot is equipped with red flashing eyes, then the circuitry and sockets for the small bulbs will need to be placed in line with the location of the eyes on the exterior of the device. Determining the placement of interior components can usually be done by creating cross section drawings of the components within an exposed area of the outer shell of the shell.
Step 5:
Enhance the exterior of the robot. Once the interior components are placed, you can begin to determine the color scheme and any esthetic elements that will work along with the functionality of the final design.
Step 6:
Develop the working blueprint for the robot. Using the sketches and the list of components, begin to create the blueprints for the creation of the shell, all exterior features such as arms or sensor lights, and also the exact layout and connectivity between the internal components. The blueprints will provide the basis for the purchase of necessary materials to build the robot based on your design
The Uncanny Design of Robot Heads
While theories of the “uncanny valley” are debatable (see Hanson’s “Upending the Uncanny Valley” , the quest for human-like androids and automatons continue to compel their designers. At Carnegie-Mellon University’s anthropomorphism.org, I found an interesting early study of robot head design that shows how these designers sometimes make choices about when to make robots anthropomorphic (human-like), and when to avoid such resemblance.
In “All Robots Are Not Created Equal,” by Carl F. DiSalvo (et. al, 2002), analyzes the human perception of the humanoid robot head in alarming detail, from the length between the top of the head and the browline, to the diameter of the eyeball, to the distance between pupils. The researchers want to know: how human should a robot head be, and is this contingent upon the context in which they are employed? Their study suggests that eyes, mouth, ears and nose — in that order — seem to be the most important traits for us to perceive the “humanness” in a machine. But the most interesting conclusion they draw, in my view, is that the more servile and industrial the robot, the less we want to perceive its resemblance to us. Thus, not all robots are created equal: “consumer” robots often are purposely more “robotic-looking” (mechanical) in design, since they often perform servitude and routine functions that would crush the spirit of any real human, while others — especially “fictional” — robots are often the most human-like of all, reflecting our projected fantasies for them as “characters.” Desalvo and crew propose that the following elements of robot design would create the ideal “human-like” robot:
1. wide head, wide eyes
2. features that dominate the face
3. complexity and detail in the eyes
4. four or more features
5. skin
6. humanistic form language
To what degree is our notion of the “double” located on the head, the face and its various features? Freud’s classic itinerary of uncanny traits include doll’s eyes and language, and I would suggest that the more the traits listed above appear in a doppelganger, the more uncanny that double might be. The role of the uncanny valley is at work here, and while it not directly addressed in DiSalvo’s article, it’s worth considering the degree to which the factor of increasing “likeness” in robot head design follows the x-axis of the classic uncanny valley:
Mori's 'Uncanny Valley' Schematic
It is useful to consider not only the “uncanny” in this chart, but the way that that assumptions about use value and instrumentality lie behind its structure. There is a politics of self/othering at work in this schema that is rarely discussed. One of the fundamental principles of the Uncanny as it is classically understood in aesthetics is that, symbolically, the “double” is a harbinger of death for the subject that perceives it. This is a complicated notion, but on one level what this means is that when the self perceives itself as disembodied and located in another entity — through its mirror image — we unconsciously recognize how “replaceable” we are and this is felt as uncanny. We do not only respond, typically, with fear: we also feel compelled to separate the Self from the Other as a form of protection against the threat that the Other presents. A power relationship transpires: the psyche construes a hierarchical separation that institutes the Self in a higher subject position than the Other, in order to retain its sense of mastery over identity. The Other is subjugated into a lower position. While it is “harmless” in fiction, this is also a dream that reproduces the politics of everyday life.
There is a generalized fear of robots and other forms of artificial intelligence “replacing” mankind; we see it everywhere in science fiction, but it is also a very real threat to the labor force. Robot design participates in a self/othering dynamic that domesticates these anxieties. Could the uncanny valley be a symptom of class conflict as much as some organic reaction formation? I think so.
Scientists design first robot using mould
Researchers have received a Leverhulme Trust grant to develop the amorphous non-silicon biological robot, plasmobot, using plasmodium, the vegetative stage of the slime mould Physarum polycephalum, a commonly occurring mould which lives in forests, gardens and most damp places in the UK. The Leverhulme Trust funded research project aims to design the first every fully biological (no silicon components) amorphous massively-parallel robot.
This project is at the forefront of research into unconventional computing. Professor Andy Adamatzky, who is leading the project, says their previous research has already proved the ability of the mould to have computational abilities.
Professor Adamatzky explains, “Most people's idea of a computer is a piece of hardware with software designed to carry out specific tasks. This mould, or plasmodium, is a naturally occurring substance with its own embedded intelligence. It propagates and searches for sources of nutrients and when it finds such sources it branches out in a series of veins of protoplasm. The plasmodium is capable of solving complex computational tasks, such as the shortest path between points and other logical calculations. Through previous experiments we have already demonstrated the ability of this mould to transport objects. By feeding it oat flakes, it grows tubes which oscillate and make it move in a certain direction carrying objects with it. We can also use light or chemical stimuli to make it grow in a certain direction.
“This new plasmodium robot, called plasmobot, will sense objects, span them in the shortest and best way possible, and transport tiny objects along pre-programmed directions. The robots will have parallel inputs and outputs, a network of sensors and the number crunching power of super computers. The plasmobot will be controlled by spatial gradients of light, electro-magnetic fields and the characteristics of the substrate on which it is placed. It will be a fully controllable and programmable amorphous intelligent robot with an embedded massively parallel computer.”
This research will lay the groundwork for further investigations into the ways in which this mould can be harnessed for its powerful computational abilities.
Professor Adamatzky says that there are long term potential benefits from harnessing this power, “We are at the very early stages of our understanding of how the potential of the plasmodium can be applied, but in years to come we may be able to use the ability of the mould for example to deliver a small quantity of a chemical substance to a target, using light to help to propel it, or the movement could be used to help assemble micro-components of machines. In the very distant future we may be able to harness the power of plasmodia within the human body, for example to enable drugs to be delivered to certain parts of the human body. It might also be possible for thousands of tiny computers made of plasmodia to live on our skin and carry out routine tasks freeing up our brain for other things. Many scientists see this as a potential development of amorphous computing, but it is purely theoretical at the moment.”
More information: Professor Adamatzky has recently edited and had published by Springer, 'Artificial Life Models in Hardware' aimed at students and researchers of robotics. The book focuses on the design and real-world implementation of artificial life robotic devices and covers a range of hopping, climbing, swimming robots, neural networks and slime mould and chemical brains.
Panasonic will debut in 2010 its robotics business
Panasonic has decided to enter the business of a robot robotic dispensing of medicines. The team will begin shipping worldwide in March 2010 in Japanese hospitals and, later, will be marketed in the U.S. and Europe. As explained yesterday, company spokesman Akira Kadota, "the humanoid robot is, rather, resembles a small wardrobe with several drawers.
The multinational, based in Osaka, said through a statement that the robot, which individually distribute medicines to patients, cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and that its aim is to reach $ 315 million (226 million euros) in annual sales of such machines in 2016.
Japan has one of the world's leading robotics industry and the government promotes the development of this sector as an engine of economic growth. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has drafted a formal plan for the robots to fully assimilate into Japanese society in 2025. This includes support for the creation of this market, which by 2015 will mean about 20,000 million.
Space Competition 2010 - News of robotics and robots
Space Competition 2010
Called the Space Contest 2010 by INTA (National Institute of Aerospace Technology). One method is Space Robotics: Building a robot with capabilities for tracking? Victims? and dodging obstacles on a stage espacial.Un summary of the bases: * Dates: School year 2009-2010. * Subject: Satellite navigation. * Target group: undergraduate students of ESO, Middle Level Training Cycles and Bachelor of any school in Spain. * Deadline: Entries must be submitted between 1 January and 28 February 2010. * Team: Work will be performed by teams of three or four students and a teacher or tutor. * Categories: There will be two categories: one for students of second year of secondary students and one for intermediate training cycles and high school. * Methods: Robotic space, research, experimentation, narrative-comics and animation.