Specifications

Dimensions

Parameter

Value

Comments

Height

48 cm

Width

51 cm

with arms stretched

Depth

20 cm

Weight

2.15 Kg

including the batteries

Weight

1.84 Kg

excluding the batteries

Actuators

Parameter

Value

Comments

Degrees of Freedom (DoF)

22

Legs DoF (each)

6

ankle pitch and roll, knee yaw and pitch, hip pitch and roll

Legs Actuators

6 x 2XL430

each leg contains 3 2XL430-W250 Dynamixel Actuators

Arms Dof (each)

4

shoulder pitch and roll, elbow yaw and pitch

Arms Actuators

8 x XL430

each arm contains 4 XL430-W250 Dynamixel Actuators

Head DoF

2

pitch and yaw

Head Actuators

1 x 2XL430

one 2XL430-W250 Dynamixel Actuator

Power

Parameter

Value

Comments

Batteries

2 x 2500mAh 3S LiPo batteries

Batteries are located in the feet and are hot-swap; there is no need to turn off the main controller to change the batteries

External power

2.5mm power jack 12V

Optionally the robot can be powered with a 12V power adapter using a standard 2.5mm barrel jack

Autonomy

3 hours

(preliminary estimates)

Monitoring

voltage

ADC used to provide reading for Dynamixel bus voltage, 5V railing and 3.3V railing.

Electronics

Parameter

Value

Comments

Main controller

Raspberry Pi CM4 8GB RAM

We use the Waveshare CM4 IO Board A to expand the peripherals.

Add on board

Robotics HAT for Raspberry Pi

The board includes:
1. high speed dual Dynamixel bus
2. IMU (Gyroscope and Accelerometer)
3. 5V 3A power switch for RPi
4. ADC for monitoring power
5. WM8960 codec with stereo mics and speakers 2 x 1W output
6. PWM fan control
7. USB to UART converter for direct USB console access for RPi

Foot sensors

SPR2010

Each foot includes a circuit that:
1. ideal diode allowing LiPo batteries hot-swap
2. battery voltage and current monitoring with 4 LED level indicator, low voltage buzzer and very low voltage cut-off
3. four force sensing resistors (FSR) for accurate positioning of the CoM
4. Dynamixel bus communication interface up to 2Mbs

Display

Waveshare 2.4" TFT display

A 2.4'' 320x 240 TFT display connected on SPI with console support

Camera

Two RPi FPC Cameras MIni Size

Connected on the two CSI camera connectors on the IO Board, 69.8 degree FoV, max 1080p30

WiFi

Built-in 5Ghz frequency -WiFi and second dongle

The built in configures a low-latency (5GHz band) Access Point (AP) and the second Wi-Fi can connect to an exiting infrastructure. It is especially efficient for running distributed ROS nodes

Bluetooth

Builtin Bluetooth 5.0 BLE

Bluetooth keyboard for remote control and interface navigation.

Software

Parameter

Value

Comments

OS

Raspbian (Debian Buster)

Kernel drivers added for:
- SC16IS762 (SPI to UART dual bus used for Dynamixel actuators)
- ST7789V (TFT display)
- WM8960 (sound)
- ADS1015 (for voltage monitoring ADC)
- fan_control

Software

ROS Noetic

ROS Noetic is installed using RoboStack

Custom ROS packages

- Dynamixel controller
- UI for robot TFT
- URDF with support for RViz and Gazebo
- "director" package that that process scripted moves
- vision (in progress)

Future plans

There are a number of exciting upgrades to the platform that we expect to deliver soon:

Area

Improvement

2nd Controller

Add a second controller Raspberry Pi CM4 in the head for vision processing with dedicated add-on board for cameras, power, fan and console access.

Coral support

Integrate a Coral Board M.2 (B+M version) using the M-key connector on the Waveshare IO Board