Help Required for choosing the right humanoid for me...

[funk_e]

Hi There,

I hope this is an appropriate place to post.

I am a robot enthusiast (I have Aibos etc), have done embedded programming and software engineering etc. I am also into RC (I have cars and helis) but I am however completely new to humanoid robotics.

Compelling features for me would be:
*Autonomous Control (#1.. I wish Nao was affordable...)
*Programmability
*Wireless Connectivity

So far I have the KHR3 on my list, but would definitely want the shell, and I LOVE the Manoi PF-01 but cannot see where to buy one.

I am a tinkerer at heart, and enjoy the building and upgrading process probably as much as the actual finished product. SO expansions are an added bonus.

Does anyone have any recommendations/links of where I can get more info etc?

Thanks so much for your help.

[chrisvo]

The KHR-3HV is a good kit in terms of bang-for-buck. It's got very reliable (all metal, quad-gearpost) serial servos with a pretty precisely manufactured frame. It is a favorite for modding because while it is robust it still retains a smooth, slender body than some other robot kits and therefore might be more amenable to adding crafts like outer-shells, etc. It also has lots of "dummy mounts" built-in for putting additional degrees of freedom in both arms and legs and providing more general flexibility for modding.

The KHR-3HV comes with a servo controller called the RCB-4HV, on which using a GUI program provided by Kondo you can program motions, responses to button presses, and if you are clever, you can do some more advanced control (like respond to one of the 10 A/D or PIO inputs on the RCB, and use PIO outputs on RCB to activate other circuitry you have installed on your robot, like maybe lasers, led lights, etc.) Kondo also sells a wireless remote control for the 3HV. However, while the programming capability on the RCB-4 is clever, it's pretty rudimentary.

If you want to be able to use a real programming language, you will need to add another microcontroller into the 3HV, like the Kondo KCB-1. It is designed to be able to fit in the stock backpack along with the RCB-4 and is programmable in C. This will give you the very basic requirements for autonomous control - embedded programmability, control of the robot, and lots of sensor inputs.

If you want even more processing power, you should read some more threads in this forum, there are a few projects to integrate Gumstix (embedded linux computer) to the KHR-3HV. This would provide much more programmability, and the addition of a camera. You will be able to do similar things as the Aldebaran Nao, at perhaps 1/10th the price.

Kondo also sells the KCB-3WL which is a 200 Mhz linux computer designed to fit in the 3HV packpack and provides camera and wifi.
You can see more information about that here:
http://kondo-robot.com/sys/kcb3wl_detail

My lab has been working with the Kondo platforms for years:
http://cs.gmu.edu/~robotics/Main/RoboPatriots

I have developed some basic software for controlling the robot and servos in C:
http://bitbucket.org/vo/libkondo4

[funk_e]

This is great information, thank you.

Can I assume that these upgrades are not available for the Manoi PF-01?

Are there any autonomous personalities available for these robots? I sometimes leave my Aibos to their own devices, and it would be great to let this guy do the same thing..

I will follow up on your links and see what else I can learn.

Thanks again!

[limor]

These humanoid have the capability of some autonomy because they can react to sensors. So proximity sensor gets then to not bang into walls, accelerometer allows them to get up when they fall using the right sequence of movements, gyro allows them to be more stable by chaning their movements if instability is sensed, object tracking through HaViMo etc.

However, these reactions are more like a reflex than like intelligence. If you want sophistication then you need more computation power and you need to spend time programming.

The 2 options are embedded linux or remote PC. For embedded Linux there's RoBoard and Gumstix. For remote-PC, you can simply add bluetooth or zigbee to the serial port on the robot's controler and interpret all the signals remotely. If you want to process lower level signals at higher frequency then you can either send those signals over wifi or use embedded linux.