Robotis Bioloid Kit: First Impressions
Robotis Bioloid Kit: First Impressions
by inaki
Mon May 15, 2006 8:55 pm
I have been playing with the Bioloid Kit for several hours and here are my first impressions:
- Parts fit nicely and are smooth to work with. It is a pleasure to attach two parts. Each part has one or both side to hold nuts. You put a nut in a hole and then attach the screw to that nut. No protruding screws or nuts, all fits nicely. Parts feel solid, they do not bend even under strong force. There are several ways to attach parts in order to perform a function. Also you can easily add new parts or improvise on the fly.
- Servos. The servos perform well although they are very noisy. The number of configurable parameters is pretty impressive. The best way to configure these parameters is by means of the utility Robot Terminal that is a text mode program used to send commands to servos and read parameters from them. One of the nicest feature of these servos is the ability to connect serially. That means that you do not need a cable going from controller to each servo, a single cable attachs all servos! The result is a very compact and good looking robot.
- The controller. It is called CM5. It is a brick that remembers somewhat the Lego Mindstorms brick. I miss however the LCD to read status or print messages. Apparently it uses an Amel ATM128 CPU. The brick holds the batteries within, so it is a bit larger than expected. It has 4 buttons for general control and 2 buttons to select working modes. It has 7 leds to show different status and data transfer modes. It has also a little speaker. Three connectors, located in 3 sides of the brick, provide a place to connect the servos. The batteries charge in place with a 12V input, so no need to remove the batteries to charge them (unless you want to have a spare battery pack). The included charger is 110/220V 50/60Hz, thanks for that!. The controller accepts programs writen with Behavior Control Program, allows to play motions captured with Motion Editor and manages all kind of commands given from the Robot Terminal. If you have the right C compiler (not included) you can even write your own programs. Although Behavior Control Program is good I think writing your own programs is the only way to take the full juice out of these robots.
-The sensor. With the kits comes a sensor that is able to sense distance and sound. The distance sensors (3 infrared, one in each side) worked right in my kit but I was unable to use the sound sensor, I don't know why. The sensor looks like an ordinary servo so it can be attached anywhere. The ARM example is a very good test for distance sensors. It would be nice to have more sensors in the future.
-Behavior Control Program. Is the program used to create programs without programming! It is totally graphic and very easy to use. You select a sentence in sequence to perform almost every kind of action available. If you are a programmer you will miss some control though.
-Motion Editor. Is the utility to capture motions from the robot and store it in play files. The position is set by hand, a la KHR1, you set a position in the robot and then you capture the position by pressing a button. It is pretty annoying having to press again and again the buttons ON/OFF to capture a position and then move the servos. The principle is that you must put OFF the servo to move it by hand but you must put it ON to capture a position. This recalls the approach used in the KHR1 and it is really a pain to use. A continous reading of positions would be much better although possibly it cannot be done with these servos (although the problem was the same with KHR1 motion capture program it does allow for continuous reading). If you use the apropriate 3D model you can even see in a window the actual robot position. There are models for an ARM and a Humanoid. I don't know if it is possible to create your own models but it does not seem a trivial matter. If you don't have a model you can use the Default model which nothing more that a list of servos.
- Robot Terminal. It is the program to send commands directly to the CM5 and servos. You can do everything possible with the AX12 using this utility. You can for example change IDs, test positions, test leds, read temperature, set servo parameters,... It is only text mode so you must type every command and its parameters by hand. Probably you could do the same with any terminal program but I have not tested this.
Conclussion:
PROS:
- Very well finished parts
- Very easy to mount
- Reasonable controller/CPU. Easy to access.
- Good graphic programing tool
- Functionally very powerful servos (but see below...)
CONS:
- Very noisy servos
- Poor motion capture
- No compiler included to program the controller directly
- Parts fit nicely and are smooth to work with. It is a pleasure to attach two parts. Each part has one or both side to hold nuts. You put a nut in a hole and then attach the screw to that nut. No protruding screws or nuts, all fits nicely. Parts feel solid, they do not bend even under strong force. There are several ways to attach parts in order to perform a function. Also you can easily add new parts or improvise on the fly.
- Servos. The servos perform well although they are very noisy. The number of configurable parameters is pretty impressive. The best way to configure these parameters is by means of the utility Robot Terminal that is a text mode program used to send commands to servos and read parameters from them. One of the nicest feature of these servos is the ability to connect serially. That means that you do not need a cable going from controller to each servo, a single cable attachs all servos! The result is a very compact and good looking robot.
- The controller. It is called CM5. It is a brick that remembers somewhat the Lego Mindstorms brick. I miss however the LCD to read status or print messages. Apparently it uses an Amel ATM128 CPU. The brick holds the batteries within, so it is a bit larger than expected. It has 4 buttons for general control and 2 buttons to select working modes. It has 7 leds to show different status and data transfer modes. It has also a little speaker. Three connectors, located in 3 sides of the brick, provide a place to connect the servos. The batteries charge in place with a 12V input, so no need to remove the batteries to charge them (unless you want to have a spare battery pack). The included charger is 110/220V 50/60Hz, thanks for that!. The controller accepts programs writen with Behavior Control Program, allows to play motions captured with Motion Editor and manages all kind of commands given from the Robot Terminal. If you have the right C compiler (not included) you can even write your own programs. Although Behavior Control Program is good I think writing your own programs is the only way to take the full juice out of these robots.
-The sensor. With the kits comes a sensor that is able to sense distance and sound. The distance sensors (3 infrared, one in each side) worked right in my kit but I was unable to use the sound sensor, I don't know why. The sensor looks like an ordinary servo so it can be attached anywhere. The ARM example is a very good test for distance sensors. It would be nice to have more sensors in the future.
-Behavior Control Program. Is the program used to create programs without programming! It is totally graphic and very easy to use. You select a sentence in sequence to perform almost every kind of action available. If you are a programmer you will miss some control though.
-Motion Editor. Is the utility to capture motions from the robot and store it in play files. The position is set by hand, a la KHR1, you set a position in the robot and then you capture the position by pressing a button. It is pretty annoying having to press again and again the buttons ON/OFF to capture a position and then move the servos. The principle is that you must put OFF the servo to move it by hand but you must put it ON to capture a position. This recalls the approach used in the KHR1 and it is really a pain to use. A continous reading of positions would be much better although possibly it cannot be done with these servos (although the problem was the same with KHR1 motion capture program it does allow for continuous reading). If you use the apropriate 3D model you can even see in a window the actual robot position. There are models for an ARM and a Humanoid. I don't know if it is possible to create your own models but it does not seem a trivial matter. If you don't have a model you can use the Default model which nothing more that a list of servos.
- Robot Terminal. It is the program to send commands directly to the CM5 and servos. You can do everything possible with the AX12 using this utility. You can for example change IDs, test positions, test leds, read temperature, set servo parameters,... It is only text mode so you must type every command and its parameters by hand. Probably you could do the same with any terminal program but I have not tested this.
Conclussion:
PROS:
- Very well finished parts
- Very easy to mount
- Reasonable controller/CPU. Easy to access.
- Good graphic programing tool
- Functionally very powerful servos (but see below...)
CONS:
- Very noisy servos
- Poor motion capture
- No compiler included to program the controller directly
by Pev
Tue May 16, 2006 12:23 am
Have just finished my intial review of the kit and the first build. Have to say I agree totally with inaki. Excellent construction but I have at least one very noisy (whining) servo. I have built the 19DOF humanoid and believe it may be the waist servo that is noisy as it supports all the weight of the upper torso , CM-5 and battery pack.
I did find that mine had the WINAVR C complier on the cd but I haven't tried this as I am a wimpy programmer. Have found the software to be a little unstable but this was improved when I down loaded the totally blank motion file from the Robotis website.
All in all not bad, now the fun begins as it's time to get it to walk and run and hop and skip (well walk anyway)
Pev
I did find that mine had the WINAVR C complier on the cd but I haven't tried this as I am a wimpy programmer. Have found the software to be a little unstable but this was improved when I down loaded the totally blank motion file from the Robotis website.
All in all not bad, now the fun begins as it's time to get it to walk and run and hop and skip (well walk anyway)
Pev
