Kevin the robot B)

By Vetle Olavesen

1) Servo actuated bipedal walking robot

I chose the "Servo actuated bipedal walking robot" for my project, and named him Kevin, my motivation for choosing this project is that i want to learn how to properly control servos, and properly plan, sketch, and build this kind of project.

What is most important to me when choosing a project is that it is a good challenge, and that i learn some interesting, developing human-like walking capabilities makes me somewhat understand topics as: gait mechanics, and servo actuation, while also getting better at practical skills in CAD modeling, and programming. Unlike wheeled robots, when making a bipedal robot, you learn to mimic natural locomotion, learning about real-world robotics applications like humanoid robots, prosthetics, and exoskeletons. And i also think it will be alot of fun.

2) Goals

My goals for this project:

• Implement servo control to make the robot move, it will not balance on its own, but will move forward while being attached to a rod to help it stay balanced.
• If possible, i would like to be able to control the speed, by changing the servo speed through the arduino control, or add pauses between movements.
• I want to have the cable management as hidden and as "clean" as possible, just so it looks nice, maybe print a cable channel to feed the cables through, or some other solution, there isn't that many cables in this project, so i think this would be fairly easy to implement, this isn't a very important goal though.

3) Sketch

For the legs, im gonna have the servos embedded in the legs, within casings, for each leg i have: one hip joint(servo controlled), one knee joint(servo controlled) and one ankle joint (not servo controlled), the purpose of the ankle and foot is so that it can be stable even if it is a little off, on the landing of the leg, i might opt for a round leg tip if that doesnt work, and just have rubber on the tip of the leg so it doesnt slide around. The arduino and power supply will be external as to not weigh down the robot (assumes that it uses the balancing rod).

4) Bill of materials

I dont 100% know what components I need, so here is an estimate:

Im thinking 2 servos per leg, so 4 servos in total, a RS485 to control the servos easier.