Humanoid Robots

                                       Humanoid Robots

A Humanoid may be defined as something that resembles or

looks like a human and having characteristics like opposable thumb, ability to walk in upright position etc. These robots are called Humanoid Robots or may be simply “Humanoids”.

A humanoid robot is a robot which has a similar shape as that of a human body. In general, a humanoid robot has a torso, a head, two arms, and two legs. These robots vary depending upon the material they are made of and the design. Generally, humanoid robots come in three variations small sized humanoids, medium sized humanoids, and large sized Humanoids. Some humanoids may also have a face, eyes, mouth and are categorized as male humanoids and female humanoids. The purpose of such robots may vary depending upon its bio-mechanics, functional capacity, production cost and complexity involved. 

Features of Humanoid Robots :

The characteristics features of Humanoid includes:

•      Self-maintenance

•      Autonomous learning

•      Avoid harmful situations to people, property and itself

•      Safe interacting with human beings and environment

Though an extensive research is necessary before building a personal robot with anthropomorphic features that is accessible and appealing to the general user. To make the robot behave like a human being, sensors play a big role. The use of sensors in robotics has taken them to the new heights of creativity. Most importantly, the sensors have increased the performance of robots to a large extent. 

Different types of sensors used in the present-day robots are:

•      Proprioceptive sensors: for sensing position, speed, and orientation 

•      Proximity sensor: to detect the presence of nearby objects 

•      Range sensor: to measure distances 

•      Tilt sensors: to measure inclination 

•      Accelerometers: to measure the acceleration 

An advanced humanoid robot categorized as Android has human-like-behavior. It can talk like a human being in a computerized voice, run, jump or even climb stairs in a very similar way as a human being does. These humanoids perform a variety of jobs ranging from complex factory jobs to household solutions.

Some of the advanced Humanoid Robots are:

•      Sophia: 

    Sophia is a very popular super advanced humanoid robot which was introduced in 2016 to mimic social behavior and emotions in human.  Sophia the robot is capable of showing over 60 different human expressions. She can easily interact with human and she has already appeared in many public interviews. Sophia became the first robot to get citizenship of any country after the kingdom of Saudi Arabia granted the citizenship. Sophia is very active in social media with more than 135k followers on Twitter and 85k followers on Facebook.

•      DARwln-OP (ROBOTICS OP) :

     it is created at Virginia Tech’s Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory (RoMeLa) in collaboration with Purdue University, University of Pennsylvania and Korean manufacturer ROBOTIS. This Humanoid can be used for household purposes, built with the main aim of education and research. 

•      DARwln Mini (ROBOTICS Mini) :

     DARwIn Mini is a very lightweight robot and it is much smaller humanoid robot kit that aims at makers and hobbyists. The 27cm (10.6 inch) tall robot is completely open source and the parts of this robot are 3D printable, which makes this an ideal and cost-effective development platform. 

•      NAO Evolution :

     it is developed by French company Aldebaran Robotics which was released in 2014. This 58cm tall robot has 25 DOF and is packed with very distinctive kinds of sensors such as tactile sensors, sonar, and pressure, not to mention cameras and other standard equipment, being able to perform highly complex motions and tasks. 

•      UBTECH Alpha 1S :

    An intelligent humanoid robot is up for sale on Amazon. It can demonstrate yoga moves, exercise moves, kung fu moves, dancing moves etc. Alpha 1S is highly flexible and can move just like a human. Alpha 1S can be controlled easily through Android OS or IOS app via Bluetooth 4.0. 

 

Conclusion:

Though the technology has advanced much in the field of Humanoid Robotics, there are still several problems which need attention. The technological brilliance of the humanoids is required to be sharpened more and the shortcomings in the results must be dealt with properly.