Sorry to mods on my last thread's derailment. I agree on the decision to lock it. I take responsibility for not being more adamantly disciplined to stay on topic. My bad. This go I plan to really emphasize staying on topic to the technical aspects of the humanoid robot build and not accommodate going into philosophy, morality, religion, politics, etc. I kindly ask everyone to keep the focus on the technical aspects of the build, in line with the forum’s guidelines..
So to kickstart this fresh thread, I must reintroduce the topic and bring this thread up to date.
To begin: the project goal: I am working to make a series of humanoid robots. I am using a Biblical theme of naming the first 3 robots I make Adam, Eve, and Abel. The goal is for these robots to have human body inspired musculoskeletal systems, advanced AI, and that they look human and pass for human to a casual observer at least at a distance. They must be able to walk, talk, run, dance, do sports, do chores, manufacture products, and make more robots just like themselves if not even better. My aim is to build a single robot arm and head and then add sufficiently advanced AI to that arm and head to enable it to build the rest of its own body for me. This way I am delegating the work of building the majority of my first humanoid robot to that robot rather than doing that work myself - and this is to save me time.
In a like manner, my goal with the AI is to code just enough AI that the AI can begin coding itself and this way I don't have to code most of the AI myself because it will self create itself. I liken this to building a seed and that seed growing into a tree because for me to code that tree would take too long for me and just creating the seed would then save me time.
Here is my CAD image for the Eve robot:
My primary focus at my current progression is building the arm for the Abel robot. I am using a off the shelf PVC medical skeleton as the basis framework of the arm. I have added artificial ligaments made of workout shirt fabric and bone sleeves made of 1000 denier nylon fabric taped onto the bones with adhesive transfer tape and also sewn tightly around the bone for a snug fit. I then am able to suture all components onto these bone sleeves using nylon upholstery thread and a curved suturing needle.
During the project's last 10 years of development, I have mainly done large amounts of research and planning as well as trial and error. Making plans, attempting to implement them, and finding out why they did not work. These setbacks were a form a failing forward, learning what not to do and narrowing down my options over time. For example, I ruled out using geared servomotors because gears are loud and having the motor and gears assembled together with the circuit board and potentiometer all crammed into a little black box was not space efficient, as far as form factor goes, for placing these assemblies into the robot's available spaces where muscles would normally be. I just wouldn't be able to fit many of these. So I needed to elongate and stretch out the form factor by mounting the motor, downgear, and circuitboards separately, spreading out each of these components of a servo. I also did not like the massive amounts of gear noises that metal geared servos give off. So I needed to find a way to downgear motors without using gears. That led me down a rabbit hole of learning to downgear by way of pulleys which can be silent and robust if done well IMO. The general idea is to have the motor output shaft act as a winch to reel in strong braided PE fishing line which then will be downgeared by a pulley system just like a crane uses or similar to downgear its cables. Then after downgearing the fishing line will have the proper torque and speed to actuate the joint it is assigned to. By copying the skeletal arrangement of the human body exactly, I am also able to copy the position, strength,and orientation of the muscles of the human body exactly to reproduce their function on the skeleton of my robot. This way I'm using a proven successful design, the human body, to ensure the success of my bio inspired design. Developing this pulley system has been much harder than I anticipated and the space it takes up is tough to accommodate. I am uncertain it will work and so once again am just in the trial and error testing phase.
Here is a CAD image of my Abel robot which shows the little BLDC motors I selected for each muscle replacement and mounted in CAD everywhere space allowed for it. There is nearly a 1:1 ratio of motors to muscles of a human body in this CAD. Although some muscles were so strong I used more than one motor to replicate its strength.
Here is a image of the hand curling the index finger.
Project website:
http://www.artbyrobot.comFull humanoid robot building playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhd7_i6zzT5-MbwGz2gMv6RJy5FIW_lfn
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