RESEARCH: HEXA Hexapod Spider Robot
HEXA is a 6 legged robot that is unique due to the natural and comical movements that are programmed in the robot. I wanted to take a deeper look into the behavioral side of this robot and learn more about how they overcame the uncanny valley.
Trossen Robotics PhantomX AX Metal Hexapod MK III
Details about the working robot is coming soon. Below are the components and descriptions of the robot.
Hexapod 3DOF Robot Kit - Trossen Robotics PhantomX AX Metal Hexapod Mark 3
Aluminum body and hardware, 18x Dynamixel AX-12A Actuators, and Arduino-Compatible ArbotiX Robocontroller.
https://www.trossenrobotics.com/phantomx-ax-hexapod.aspx
Laser Lidar Scanner - Seed Studio RP LIDAR A2M6
The next generation 360 degree 2D laser scanner (LIDAR) solution developed by SLAMTEC
https://www.seeedstudio.com/RPLidar-A2M6-The-Thinest-LIDAR-p-2919.html
Objective Tracking Camera - Pixy2 CMUcam5 Smart Vision Sensor
It can detect and track lines for use with line-following robots and even intersections and “road signs” as well.
https://www.seeedstudio.com/Pixy2-CMUcam5-Smart-Vision-Sensor-p-3091.html
Robotis BT-410
BT-410 is a wireless communication solution for IoT.
Robotis Open CM9.04-C
Dynamixel Controller - an open source micro-controller from ROBOTIS powered by the 32-bit ARM Cortex-M3 processor
https://www.trossenrobotics.com/open-cm-904c
Seed Studio UartSBEE V5
USB-XBEE TTL interface - UartSBee v5' is FTDI cable compatible USB to Serial adapter equipped with BEE socket(20pin 2.0mm). The integrated FT232RL can be used for programming or communicating with MCUs.
https://www.trossenrobotics.com/uartsbee
Intel EDISON computer with Arduino
A compact computing platform that's small by design so it can easily integrate it into projects. It's primarily designed for "Internet of Things" projects and is pretty powerful for its small size.
https://www.adafruit.com/product/2180
OLIMEX A20-OLINUXINO-LIME2-EMMC
Allwinner A20/T2 dual core Cortex-A7 processor, each core typically running at 1GHz and dual-core Mali 400 GPU
https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A20/A20-OLinuXino-LIME2/open-source-hardware
PROJECT STATUS - Research & Acquisition
Base Robot Kit - Trossen PhantomX AX Metal Hexapod Mark III
https://www.trossenrobotics.com/phantomx-ax-hexapod.aspx
https://www.trossenrobotics.com/p/arbotix-robot-controller.aspx
https://www.trossenrobotics.com/dynamixel-ax-12-robot-actuator.aspx
https://www.trossenrobotics.com/6-port-ax-mx-power-hub
https://www.trossenrobotics.com/p/arbotix-commander-gamepad-v2.aspx
https://www.trossenrobotics.com/phantomx-metal-hexapod-mk-iii-upgrade-kit.aspx
Assembly Guide
https://learn.trossenrobotics.com/projects/172-phantomx-hexapod-metal-assembly-guide.html
ArbotiX-M Robot Controller
Dynamixel DynaManager
Robot Build Check and Test
XBee Configuration
ArbotiX Commander Setup
Wireless Handheld Controll Setup
Virtual Commander
LIDAR Lite
https://learn.trossenrobotics.com/projects/158-lidar-light-mapping-with-dynamixel-servos-2.html
Hexapod Phoenix Code
https://learn.trossenrobotics.com/10-interbotix/crawlers/phantomx-hexapod/68-phoenix-code.html
ROS
http://wiki.ros.org/Distributions
——
https://www.adeept.com/raspclaws_p0124.html
Hexapod Kit + Servos
https://learn.trossenrobotics.com/10-interbotix/crawlers/phantomx-hexapod/68-phoenix-code.html
—
https://www.robotshop.com/en/lynxmotion-quadrapods-kits-1.html
https://rhoeby.com/product/rhoeby-hexapod/
https://rhoeby.com/product/yd-lidar-f4pro/
https://www.intorobotics.com/11-stunning-diy-hexapod-robots/
https://makezine.com/2015/06/18/agile-hexapod-sees-markets-smallest-lowest-cost-lidar/
——
https://confluence.csiro.au/display/ASL/Legged+Robots
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=Rx4ewkxAItI
https://www.deviceplus.com/inspire/nature-inspired-6-legged-hexapod-robots/3/
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Trossen Robotics Community
http://forums.trossenrobotics.com/content.php
Cyber-Physical Systems
https://www.data61.csiro.au/en/Our-Research/Programs-and-Facilities/Cyber-physical-systems
PROJECT VISION & GOALS
VISION
The project is to build a walking robot that actually does work. As such, the size and body of the robot must be practical and the actuator/servo must be industrial quality. Quadruped (6 legged) is preferred as it provides a good balance and stability for walking, climbing, and the extra arm/legs can benefits from the extra sensors/tools. 3DOF (3 joints per leg) was preferred for simpler programming and less number of actuators to go wrong (the concept of a minimum viable product design). Over the years, the robot will be used as a main prototyping platform adding addition capabilities such as vision, sensing, speech etc. One important thing to note about this project is that the end-state vision for the robot is not an autonomous robot controlled by the onboarded computer. Rather, my turbo computer based in my lab will be controlling the robot as if the pilot is flying the FPV drone remotely. In addition to the benefit of much more computing and processing power with this approach, I also have the ability to scale up by adding additional identical and/or different robots. The network of robots can work together and share its data leveraging the central turbo computer. Perhaps some people may see this as a Skynet scenario, but I currently see this approach as a viable way of effectively controlling the large number of robots/cars/phones/IoT.
GOALS - 2020
Research and acquire a base robot framework - robot body, servo, controller, sensors
Research and test several gait development platforms - RSO, Cynthiam, ArbotiX/Arduino
Implement basic capabilities - walking, running, climb stairs, vision - object detection, speech recognition
Search and destroy mission - find and neutralize enemy killer drones