Development of a Low-Cost Humanoid Robot: Components and Technological Solutions

The paper presents a set of solutions to build a humanoid robot at reduced costs using off-the-shelf technology, but still aiming at a fully autonomous platform for research. The main scope of this project is to have a working prototype capable of participating in the RoboCup humanoid league, and to offer opportunities for under and pos-graduate students to apply engineering methods and techniques in such an ambitious and overwhelming endeavor. The most relevant achievements on this implementation include the distributed control architecture, based on a CAN network, and the modularity at the system level. These features allow for localized control capabilities, based both on global and local feedback from several sensors, ranging from joint position monitoring to force sensors. Force sensors on the feet were designed and integrated using strain gauges properly calibrated and electrically conditioned. Although some issues are yet to be completed, the stage of development is already enough for practical experiments and to obtain positive conclusions about the solutions proposed.