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Robel: Robotics Benchmarks for Learning with Low-Cost Robots

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Re: Robel: Robotics Benchmarks for Learning with Low-Cost Robots

#21

Post by richk449 »

pmorais wrote: post #8
netinstructions wrote: post #2

They may be lower cost than the status quo, but $3199 to $3699 is out of my reach as a (non professional) hobbyist. I hope maybe one day though! https://sites.google.com/view/roboicsbenchmarks/getting-star... https://www.trossenrobotics.com/d-kitty.aspx https://www.trossenrobotics.com/d-claw.aspx Not quite in the realm like the $50 to $90 'Google Voice / Google Vision AI' kits https://aiyprojects.withgoogle.com/

You’re not the intended audience. This is meant for small research labs that are just starting up and want to enter the RL/Robotics research space and can’t afford a $400,000 PR2 or $150,000 shadow hand.

You can buy a meca500 for 15k USD. If you are just doing learning stuff, it should be more than adequate.

Re: Robel: Robotics Benchmarks for Learning with Low-Cost Robots

#22

Post by Iv »

natvert wrote: post #18

our lab uses Dynamixles in the widow x ( https://www.trossenrobotics.com/widowxrobotarm ) and the servos alone are 70% of the total cost. is anyone aware of an open-source alternative to these servos? this would be a great contribution to the community, if not available already

I have a hard time finding a good heavier duty servo that does not cost the price of a car. I looked into how to make one from a DC motor. There are some open source project about it:

https://hackaday.io/project/9433-brushed-dc-servo-drive

https://www.crowdsupply.com/citrus-cnc/tarocco

But for some reason, most projects I found do not use DC motors:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tropicallabs/mechaduino...

https://odriverobotics.com/

If you ever find a good OSS servo, could you ping me?

Re: Robel: Robotics Benchmarks for Learning with Low-Cost Robots

#23

Post by Iv »

gene-h wrote: post #7
lnsru wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn’t stepper motor with encoder and current sensor be cheaper?

I'm skeptical that a stepper motor would be able to support it's own weight and more without a gearbox. This is especially important for making serial manipulators. Also keep in mind that what they're aiming for here is repeatability so that researchers can easily compare their algorithms. That means using parts that don't vary too much and minimizing the amount of assembly researchers have to do. There are much chea…

Steppers are highly repeatable.

Re: Robel: Robotics Benchmarks for Learning with Low-Cost Robots

#24

Post by Iv »

dekhn wrote: post #9

I'm interested in hearing from anybody who has sucessfully built a useful research robot for my experience has been everything < $1K uses crappy servos.

I am trying to build a suspended robot for about $1000 as an open source project:

http://fae-bot.org/

Unfortunately at that price it comes without a manipulator, but I have bought (very) cheap arms and will experiment with them soon.

Re: Robel: Robotics Benchmarks for Learning with Low-Cost Robots

#25

Post by tastroder »

Iv wrote: post #23
gene-h wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm skeptical that a stepper motor would be able to support it's own weight and more without a gearbox. This is especially important for making serial manipulators. Also keep in mind that what they're aiming for here is repeatability so that researchers can easily compare their algorithms. That means using parts that don't vary too much and minimizing the amount of assembly researchers have to do. There are much chea…

Steppers are highly repeatable.

This is more about repeatable experiments than particular movements.

Regarding the price, the actuators seem to be ~240USD. A good stepper motor with the appropriate feedback mechanism to make it suitable for servo-like control plus a modern stepper motor controller that is suited for the robotics context will likely not be (much) cheaper and you have to hack together the servo functionality, tune settings, etc. - which seems detrimental if the goal is repeatability accross teams. I'm not in the target audience for these robots either but from the perspective of robustness and repeatable research they don't look too shabby.

Re: Robel: Robotics Benchmarks for Learning with Low-Cost Robots

#26

Post by contingencies »

gene-h wrote: post #4
netinstructions wrote: post #2

They may be lower cost than the status quo, but $3199 to $3699 is out of my reach as a (non professional) hobbyist. I hope maybe one day though! https://sites.google.com/view/roboicsbenchmarks/getting-star... https://www.trossenrobotics.com/d-kitty.aspx https://www.trossenrobotics.com/d-claw.aspx Not quite in the realm like the $50 to $90 'Google Voice / Google Vision AI' kits https://aiyprojects.withgoogle.com/

The main cost is the actuators. The servos they use are the only ones out there with integrated feed back from the sensors which is required so they can calculate hardware safety. They also have, albeit pretty bad, torque control which is necessary for many approaches to controlling legged robots and manipulators.

According to a Chinese SCARA motor producer, Tamagawa is a notable Japanese manufacturer of servos used in SCARA robots. http://www.tamagawa-seiki.com/products/servomotor/
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