The design and validation of the R1 personal humanoid

TLDR

Recent robotics trends have produced service robots, yet current models are either costly or ill‑suited for manipulation tasks. The project aims to demonstrate the feasibility of an affordable humanoid robot and describe its main features. The robot uses polymeric materials, lightweight design, novel actuation, and integrated audio‑visual interfaces to enable natural interaction. R1 can navigate, manipulate objects, operate switches, open doors, and its projected cost is comparable to a family car, potentially lower with mass production.

Abstract

In recent years the robotics field has witnessed an interesting new trend. Several companies started the production of service robots whose aim is to cooperate with humans. The robots developed so far are either rather expensive or unsuitable for manipulation tasks. This article presents the result of a project which wishes to demonstrate the feasibility of an affordable humanoid robot. R1 is able to navigate, and interact with the environment (grasping and carrying objects, operating switches, opening doors etc). The robot is also equipped with a speaker, microphones and it mounts a display in the head to support interaction using natural channels like speech or (simulated) eye movements. The final cost of the robot is expected to range around that of a family car, possibly, when produced in large quantities, even significantly lower. This goal was tackled along three synergistic directions: use of polymeric materials, light-weight design and implementation of novel actuation solutions. These lines, as well as the robot with its main features, are described hereafter.