Humanoid robots have many potential applications, which make this area very attractive for researchers. However many of the yet developed humanoids suffer from over-designed and too complicated hardware and software which is still far from the human model.
The FUmanoid team was started in 2006 in the Artificial Intelligence group at Freie Universität Berlin, which has had a successful and long history in RoboCup with the FU-Fighters team. The team has shown an excellent performance in its first year of activity by winning the 3rd place of the world RoboCup humanoid league in kid-size class, presenting the lightest and the least expensive football playing robots in their class. This is achieved by advancing several solutions in the areas of hardware and software.
The FUmanoid project is a step towards research and development of robots which offer more real human-interaction, can perform tasks in our environment and will be able to play important roles in our daily life.
While our first robots’ mechanical structure was an improved Bioloid construction kit, which is available for research and competition, in 2009 we chose a self-made mechanical construction of our robots. This approach continued in the following years, where new robots were developed each year. Hardware and most of the electronic components are developed in-house by research staff and students.
The actuator family used in every FUmanoid robot is the Dynamixel servo produced by Robotis Inc, Korea. “Dynamixel AX-12” and “Dynamixel RX-28” were used in 2008, in our current model “Dynamixel RX-64″ were placed into the legs for more stability and faster walking speed, and “Dynamixel RX-28″ in the upper body.
For more information about our robots take a look at the various models throughout the years: