Components > Controls

Robots are typically powered by batteries. However, there is increasing attention towards providing them with hybrid fuel cell battery combination. Let’s take a look at plusses and minuses of each and how a hybrid system can work. Batteries: Advantages: Disadvantages: Fuel Cells: Advantages: Disadvantages: Because of these characteristics, fuel cells fit better to heavier applications such as vehicles and backup power, while batteries are almost exclusively used in electronics and robots. As can be inferred from above, where each have their own strengths, making a hybrid system would indeed provide us with robots that can run longer time without sacrificing strength. Hybrid Systems: Robots are highly mobile systems which need […] Read More

What is Whole Body Control (WBC) in humanoid robots? Humanoid robots are among the most complex robotic systems, with lot of joints, which work not in isolation but must work in coordination. The rotation of each joint, along each axis, is one degree of freedom (DOF). Actually DOF can also be linear, not only rotational (such as when analyzing structures in civil engineering), but in humanoid robots, we mainly deal with rotational DOF. Whole Body Control (WBC) is a commonly used term which refers to coordinating body movements, which means all DOF in a balanced and stable way toward desired goals. This includes the following criteria which are coordinated simultaneously: […] Read More

Control systems in a humanoid robot serve as the layer between the main AI system (that is responsible from the overalllearning, planning, reasoning and decision making of a robot) and the hardware that will enable robot’s actions. According to the “order” given by the AI, the control system then executes this order, while at the same time coordinating all systems within the robot. The highest control level is where the control system interacts with the AI. The middle control system controls overall posture and movement and the low level control systems controls joints (actuators) and sensors and processes sensor feedback. Let’s take a look at each. High Level Controls: High […] Read More