AUTOMI Humanoid KidSize

Team Description Paper

FIRA HuroCup 2019, Changwon City, South Korea

Abhay Varshney, Anjesh Saroj, Ayush Singh, Harsh Verma, Himanshu Verma,
Madhur Deep Jain, Ratnangshu Das, Saurabh Ranjan, and Ujjwal Varshney

Team Humanoid, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur,

Kalyanpur, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh 208016, India
iitkhumanoid@gmail.com, srranjan@iitk.ac.in
https://humanoid-iitk.github.io/

Abstract. This paper describes the team Humanoid and our kid-sized
humanoid robot AUTOMI. The team is comprised entirely of undergrad-
uate students. The paper covers our strategy for the design of the robot
and other algorithms implemented on the robot. It also tells about the
software and electrical architecture of the robot.

1 Introduction
It is beyond question that a man’s best assistant is another man himself. If
ever in the near future, there arises a possibility of a machine replacing a man’s
role, the chosen machine has to be made to look as close as to a human in
appearance and has to be capable of adapting to the human environment without
much modification. With this vision, many companies, research institutes, and
universities have been developing various humanoids.
All this research about different humanoids signifies the importance of me-
chanical design in developing a humanoid robot.

2 Design and Specifications

The mechanical design of any humanoid depends on various parameters. So
before designing the final model on CAD [4], a lot of research was done on
the shape and the orientation of different body parts, torque, and load on each
joint, dimension and specification of electrical components, a processing unit,
operating system, the orientation of sensors and the optimized trajectory for
walking.
AUTOMI was designed keeping in mind the specifications required to par-
ticipate in FIRA HuroCup. The final design of our bot AUTOMI has an overall
height of 58 cm and a weight of 4.2 kg with 18 Degrees of freedom. Its
design was majorly dependent on the following four factors:
1. Specifications (Needed for FIRA HuroCup)
2 S. Ranjan et al.

2. Dimensions of components
3. Low weight and less power consumption
4. Minimum constraints possible

We have designed the robot using aluminum sheets and we have decided to
further introduce some improvements in our bot which are:

1. 3D printed body New 3D printed links with slots for Dynamixel wires and
3D print head to support camera and give a nice look to our bot.
2. Electrical architecture case 3D printed box to encase main electrical
components including battery and processor.
3. Crash protection Introduce bumpers in front and back side to provide
protection from the crash when bot falls down.

Table 1. Hardware Specifications

SNo. Type Component

1 Processor Odroid XU4
2 Camera Logitech C930
3 Actuators Dynamixel AX-12, AX-18, MX-28 and MX-64
4 IMU RSX–UM7
5 FSR FSR 402

3 Motion Simulation

Motion Simulation is a mathematical algorithm written on MATLAB to know

how actuators of each joint should rotate to make a humanoid do all necessary
actions.The walking algorithm includes finding joints’ location from optimized
trajectories through inverse kinematics and computing that optimized trajec-
tory through inverse and forward dynamics equations (recursive Newton- Euler
equations). For both tasks, first, the biped needs to be perceived as a ball-stick
model where all ,the masses are located at the location of joints because the
masses of the links are very less as compared to actuators’ mass.
The algorithm is derived from static equations of gait motions, which makes
back-walk trajectory similar to straight walk.
In the algorithm, starting and ending point of COM is identified through
static Zero Moment Point (ZMP) theory, which states that ZMP should lie within
the foot maps of the landed foot.
Simulations of Rise-after fall, archery and basketball are derived out of itera-
tive constraints of each joint angle and considering rated joint torques. Similarly,
simulation of turning is obtained using slipping foot on the ground and calibrated
through IMU.
 AUTOMI Humanoid KidSize Team Description Paper 3

Fig. 1. MATLAB plot of walking algorithm of AUTOMI

4 Control Strategy

An offline gait was obtained through energy optimization, while a real-time

feedback system was used to stabilize the walking. Pressure sensors at the ankle
and Inertial Measurement Units at the COM of AUTOMI were installed. The
sensor data is processed and the results are used to modify the input joint angles
of the actuators. This reduces instability produced by unpredicted external forces
and torques like vibrations due to excess torque at the joints, landing shock
because of the untimely landing of foot and the imbalance caused by an overshoot
in actuators.

5 Computer Vision

We currently, use color-based object detection. Since the environment is suffi-

ciently color coded, this technique produces reliable results.

– Obstacle Avoidance By extracting the green colored arena and subse-

quently finding the widest available pass in the frame, we are able to guide
our bot through the arena.
Currently we are developing a more optimal motion planning for obstacle
run, instead of just following the largest visible passages.

– Arrow detection(Marathon) For arrow detection, black color on the

arena is detected (assuming that arrow is associated with black color). The
algorithm for finding the arrow direction involves dividing the arrow into
three parts, namely left, right and middle and comparing the relative areas
of the three regions.

– Archery The center of the bullseye is tracked and used to estimate the ra-
dius and angular velocity of the target.
4 S. Ranjan et al.

– Weightlifting We first extract the orientation and position of white lines

in the frame. Then the center of marker lines is found, which is then used to
get the distance between the bot and the nearest visible line.

– Sprint The lines are found by the aforementioned method. Then the algo-
rithm is such that the bot tries to keep both the lines (left and right), to be
tilted symmetrically in the frame.

Fig. 2. Arrow detection

6 Software Architecture
The software architecture is entirely based on Robot Operating System (ROS).
There are four main packages:
1. automi bringup initializes all sensors and Dynamixels.
2. automi vision contains all vision related nodes for all tasks.
3. automi motion motion module for controlling the Dynamixel servos.
4. automi tasks receives data from vision nodes, processes it and commands
motion module for respective tasks.

7 Electrical Architecture
Presently the AUTOMI’s electrical components are operated separately and
powered through an external DC 12V power supply. So we have designed a
Printed Circuit Board (PCB) of the complete circuit of the humanoid that will
consist of :
1. Portable connections with all electrical components
2. Battery Management Module
3. Power safety Module

8 Conclusion
This report described the technical plans and works done by the Team Humanoid
IITK for its entry in the Fira Huro cup. Our objective for our first year would be
to contribute as much as we can and gather a lot of knowledge and experience
for our future endeavors.