Reem-B: An autonomous lightweight human-size humanoid robot

TLDR

Reem‑B is designed to assist humans in shared environments, standing out among similarly sized humanoids by its higher level of autonomy. This paper introduces Reem‑B, a Pal Robotics research platform for service robotics. Reem‑B’s design features a bipedal body with strong arms and fingered hands, a vision and auditory sensor suite, and integrated software that coordinates all degrees of freedom for dynamic walking, human interaction, and object manipulation. Reem‑B demonstrates enhanced autonomy, offering roughly double the battery life of competitors, autonomous indoor navigation with obstacle avoidance, and fully integrated control systems.

Abstract

This paper introduces the humanoid robot Reem-B, built by Pal robotics as a research platform in the field of service robots. The idea is to produce robots that can help humans and cohabit their environments. For this purpose, the body plan, sensory and actuator system of the robot, as well as its cognitive abilities must be designed to perform real-world tasks including dynamic walking, interaction with people or object recognition and manipulation. Reem-B achieves this scope by using two legs, two strong arms with fingered hands, and a software suite that controls all its degrees of freedom, coordinating them with vision and auditory systems. The main difference with other humanoids of its size is its level of autonomy. Autonomy in this robot has been improved from other robots at three different levels: with an increased battery life (estimated twice of the competitors), with the ability to autonomously navigate in indoor environments while avoiding obstacles, and by integrating all the control systems within the robot itself.