robotic

All posts tagged robotic

Animabot Rev3 – Mecha – Lower Body Assembly

Posted by Emmanuel Sichet on 07/08/2019
Posted in: Animabot Rev3, Mecha. Tagged: , , , , , , . 6 Comments

After so many weeks of waiting, all Animabot’s parts are finally home !!!

I decided to start with the lower body assembly and then working the way up to the head. The legs will be the last parts to be mounted because I need to redo the PCB and the PCB should be mounted before the legs 😀 this, and also because I didn’t find the courage yet to disassemble the current version yet :/

 

The first I did was to check if the motherboard and the servos were properly fitting inside and yes they do! So from this, I started by mounting the screws inserts in place ( by using a soldering iron, then pressing gently them in the hole). Once this step done, I continued with the buttons on the rear panel which are inserted and glued (easy peasy) and placed the dust grid behind the air vents. To install them, I also used the soldering iron and kind of “soldered” to the inner side of the body (melted both together), the result is not particularly aesthetic but it’s easy and durable !

Rear Panel Connections
Rear panel connections
IR Telemeter
Motherboard placement check

Below the battery, is mounted the dock connector constituted of 2 concentric copper rings (no polarity inversion possible !) and also the dock sensor which is basically a simple magnetic switch (Reed switch). All this is isolated from the battery with some Kapton tape. Last but not least, the IR Telemeter is now fiercely mounted on the front. The switch on the very bottom is the battery kill switch which allows me to completely disconnect the battery from the system  ….  just in case…   😀

Rear Panel Test
Dock Connector and Reed switch
Rear Panel
Robot’s belly
IR Telemeter

Next Step will be the upper body 😉

Animabot Rev3 – Mecha – Head Design

Posted by Emmanuel Sichet on 29/04/2019
Posted in: Animabot Rev3, Mecha. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

The past weeks have been dedicated to the Head design which is coming along nicely 🙂 The head is slightly smaller than the actual version but contains more devices:

  • Gesture sensor on top
  • 2x OLED displays for the eyes
  • 5Mpx Micro Camera
  • 2x Servos for Ears
  • 1x Servo for Head pitch

The head is divided in 2 parts in order to allow me to assemble the devices inside. Both part are screwed together and for the first time I will be using threaded inserts in order to have proper mounting 😉

 

The ears design will be done later, I want to have the complete robot designed to see how they fit with the rest of the body.

I already order some samples of the head to see the print quality and tolerances, I’m glad I did it because I already found several errors I have to correct for the final version. I could also do a test fit for the parts and it looks pretty fine as you can see:

The color is not the definitive one and I’m not sure about the Display color… but it gives a pretty good idea of the future look 😉

 

Animabot Rev3 – New version, new Specs !

Posted by Emmanuel Sichet on 28/01/2019
Posted in: Animabot Rev3. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

Hi Everyone,

So it’s been a while since I posted something here… I have been really busy on some other projects which made the progress on Anima very difficult… I still continued the development on the current version but the more I worked on it, the more I was thinking that it could be greatly improved !

The version 1 and 2 have already been done, however I’m not completely satisfied with the current version… The body cut in several parts due to print size limitation kind of destroy the overall aesthetic and weaken the body. Then the concept was oriented towards a exploration/security robot and I figured it would be better to design it more like a companion instead !

This will be the third and last version of this robot… I started this project quite some time ago (in 2001) and I think it is time to at least finish one version of it :D
The concept is still the same and most of the exterior design will remain similar to the Rev2. However, the hardware and mechanical will greatly improve !

The Hardware design is almost finished and the Mechanical design is approximately 60% completed ! so stay tuned for updates !

Improvements from Rev2:
• SLA 3D printed body
• Overall body design improved
• 4 Layers Single Motherboard for better performance and size reduction
• All sensors are I2C and on the same bus
• Improved battery charger
• Improved Power supply
• Efficient active cooling
• Improved communication between STM32 and Rpi
• 2 axis Head (new feature !)
• 2 Oled display for the Eyes (new feature !)
• 2 moving ears (new feature !)
• Gesture sensor on top the the head for better interactions (new feature !)
• Docking station capable (new feature !)
• Flexible Oled display for robot status (new feature !)
• Hidden Raspberry Pi with moving hood (new feature !)

Components & Characteristics:
• Energy: Li-Ion 11.1V 7800mAh
• Power: Custom 140W PSU based on LM25119PSQ
• Charger: Custom, based on LTC4015
• Brains: STM32F415VGT6 + Raspberry Pi 3 B+
• OS: RTOS + Raspian
• Programming Language: C, Python
• Communication: 2x Bluetooth + WiFi
• Vision: 5Mpx Micro Camera
• Displays:
– 2x 0.49″ OLED for the Eyes
– 1x 1.81″ Flexible OLED for robot status
• Actuators:
– Legs: 18x Herkulex DRS-0101
– Hood: 1x KST DS215MG
– Head: 2x KST DS215MG
– Ears: 2x Hitec HS-40
• Sound: 2x 1W stereo speakers + buzzer
• Interface:
– Capacitive touch switch with RGB led
– Gesture sensor
• Control: Autonomous and Remote-controlled
• Sensors:
– 1x IMU 10-DOF
– 2x LM75B temperature monitor
– 1x IR telemeter(GP2Y0A21)
– 1x Magnetic switch for charging dock
• Target environment: indoor/outdoor
• Size [LxWxH]: 28cm x 36cm x 16cm
• Weight: 2,5kg

Animabot Rev2 – First movements

Posted by Emmanuel Sichet on 21/09/2016
Posted in: Animabot Rev2. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

Hi everybody ! it’s been a while… I have been quite busy the past few months and I didn’t had time to really work on Animabot… But I didn’t not forget him and I’m back in game and I will do my best to get this little beast walking as soon as possible.

I have to get back to the Kinematic story which is for me quite complicated but I have a short video for you 🙂

Stay tuned !

Animabot Rev2 – Coxa Design

Posted by Emmanuel Sichet on 26/05/2014
Posted in: Animabot Rev2. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Hi there !

I finished the coxa articulation, this was a bit more complicated than expected, mostly for the shape design… I created a hole inside the part to be able to pass the cable inside, like this it will not be visible 😉 I didn’t had the time for running some stress tests on this part, so I will do it this week and update this post ^^

I still have to finish the leg. As you can see on the global view of Animabot, the legs are not fitting right on the femur : it is normal, and I will correct that this weekend !

Coxa
Coxa Integrated
Global view, body closed

Looks pretty good, no ?

Animabot Rev2 – Design

Posted by Emmanuel Sichet on 28/03/2014
Posted in: Animabot Rev2. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

For the second version of Animabot I want something different. I don’t want to see the motors or the electronic. I also want him more powerful, more intelligent and more friendly !

So for the design I opted for a full 3D printed body, which allow me smooth forms, and complex shapes. For the design I will inspire me from  Norio Fujikawa which has made this one :

Kanibot

The design will be complex to do, but I think I am able to do it 😉

For the intelligence I will use 2 boards :

  • The Broadcom BCM2835 ARM11 700Mhz “System On Chip” Processor
  • Integrated Videocore 4 GPU capable of playing Full 1080p
  • 512MB RAM
  • Debian GNU/Linux Operating System
  • 2 x USB Ports
  • HDMI Video Output
  • RCA Video Output
  • 3.5mm Audio Output Jack
  • 10/100Mb Ethernet Port
  • 5V Micro USB Power Input Jack
  • SD, MMC, SDIO Flash Memory Card Slot
  • 26-pin 2.54mm Header Expansion Slot

 

  • STM32F407VGT6 µC featuring 32-bit ARM Cortex-M4F core, 1 MB Flash, 192 KB RAM
  • On-board ST-LINK/V2 with selection mode switch to use the kit as a standalone ST-LINK/V2
  • Board power supply: through USB bus or from an external 5 V supply voltage
  • External application power supply: 3 V and 5 V
  • LIS302DL or LIS3DSH ST MEMS 3-axis accelerometer
  • MP45DT02, ST MEMS audio sensor, omni-directional digital microphone
  • CS43L22, audio DAC with integrated class D speaker driver
  • Eight LEDs:
  • LD1 (red/green) for USB communication
  • LD2 (red) for 3.3 V power on
  • Four user LEDs
  • 2 USB OTG LEDs LD7 (green) VBus and (red) over-current
  • Two push buttons (user and reset)
  • USB OTG FS with micro-AB connector
  • Extension header for all LQFP100 I/Os for quick connection

 

Why these 2 ones ? because the Raspberry is powerful, runs on Linux, is cheap and has an huge community. The second one because it has a lot of pins (breakout board) which allows me to connect sensors and also drives all the servomotors.

 

This time I made a proper architecture :

Architecture

Architecture

 

 

Animabot Rev1

Posted by Emmanuel Sichet on 28/03/2014
Posted in: Animabot Rev1. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

I started the construction of a hexapod robot named Animabot in 2007.  This was a child dream since the serie “F/X: The Series” in which one there is small hexapod named Blue. This robot was considered as a dog, and since I also want my own “dog robot”.

The goal of this project is to have an animated and responsive robot, a robot which can interact with its environment and the people,  in the same way as Aibo.

Animabot was first made out of Plexiglas and controlled by a BasicStamp 2e. Then I changed the Plexiglas for aluminium and the BasciStamp for a PIC µC. Trough the years, I have made 7 evolution of the board with a PIC 16 then 18 and finally a 32.

Animabot is autonomous thanks to a rear sensor and a front sensor mounted on a moving head. He can move in an indoor or outdoor environment avoiding obstacles. He is also able to stabilize itself thanks to an accelerometer.

Animabot can be manually controlled by an Android application or a computer software, both done by a Bluetooth communication.

Hexapod Rev1

 

Remote control by laptop :

 

Stabilization :

 

Obstacles avoidance :