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Advanced Expressive Humanoid Whole-Body Control

exbody2.github.io

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Re: Advanced Expressive Humanoid Whole-Body Control

#21
post #17
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Unitree links claim a 9000mAh battery will last it 2 hours; I don't know the voltage, but even at 5.5 V cells, that's only about 25 W average power consumption. I find this difficult to believe, both because that's a very low power draw and because that would be penny-pinching on battery capacity. My expectation on timescale is that genuinely general-purpose robots will need at least as much compute as a self-dri…

You misunderstand battery specs. It's a 13 string (more commonly, 13s) battery- a string is a number of cells wired in series. By convention that's a 48 volt battery, which matches with the 54 volt charger. In total that's a 421 watt-hour battery, for an average power of ~210 watts over 2 hours. When you connect 2 9000 mAh cells in series, the resulting battery has 2x the voltage but the same mAh capacity. In paralle…

Correcting the correction:

> When you connect 2 9000 mAh cells in series, the resulting battery has 2x the voltage but the same mAh capacity. In parallel, the battery has the same voltage but 2x the mAh.

The relevant units are:

* Capacity (Q, in mAh, Ah, kWh, etc)

* Power (P, in Watts)

* Voltage (U, in Volts)

* Current (I, in Amperes)

* Duration (t, in mostly measured in hours)

And the relevant formulas are:

* P = U x I or Power equals Voltage(difference) times Current

* Q = P x t or Capacity equals Power times duration

From this we can establish that connecting batteries in series or in parallel will not change their Capacity. When having 13 batteries of 29000mAh, or 29Ah, you have 13 x 29 = 377Ah or 377000mAh. Connecting batteries in series or parallel does make a difference in voltage and current: a string in series will increase the voltage while keeping the current the same (theoretically, in practice you get less than the current of the weakest cell); a parallel setup will increase the maximum current while keeping the voltage the same (again, in theory).

Re: Advanced Expressive Humanoid Whole-Body Control

#22
post #14

Compared with other robots, it looks very impressive. Compared with living things, it looks ... well, could be better. Compared with human waltz dancers - I'd say it was a bad idea to use this as a reference.

> Compared with living things, it looks ... well, could be better.

Sometimes it's fun to be cyberpunk-contrarian, diving into all the ways our standard equipment--even "just" an arm or leg--is actually incomprehensibly complex nanotechnology that we can't even begin to match with artificial means, satisfying dozens of difficult requirements like "float in water instead of dying" or "self-lubricating with limited self-repair" or "destroys invading nanomachines."

Re: Advanced Expressive Humanoid Whole-Body Control

#24
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shopping (which takes hours where I live), picking olives (it will take forever if you have to hop into the charger every 15 minutes), carrying my backpack on walks etc.

For shopping, surely the best robotic option are the various things the huge warehouses use, rather than havingthan a humanoid going around a store meant for humans? Both the things that look like Roombas and all these: https://youtu.be/ssZ_8cqfBlE?si=9mCtiKKkk_N9Uk7z No single consumer would buy all that, but the retailers can.

The most overall efficient method is robotizing the store and deliveries, yes. Which a consumer is powerless to do. But if a consumer can buy a generalized household robot, it becomes cheaper the more tasks it can perform, amortizing the cost over the total work done. A generalized household robot will become practical when it becomes cheaper than hiring staff or carers. There is most certainly a market with the elderly and others requiring assistance for a robot capable of going around stores meant for humans.

Re: Advanced Expressive Humanoid Whole-Body Control

#25
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you use it for that needs long battery life?

Shopping (which takes hours where I live), picking olives (it will take forever if you have to hop into the charger every 15 minutes), carrying my backpack on walks etc.

Are there not bigger constraints than battery life to a robot being able to do your shopping for you? It can't drive, public transit probably won't let a robot ride it, it can walk but it'll take forever. If it gets hit by a vehicle while walking, is the vehicle driver even committing a crime? Do you get reimbursed? Is the robot insurable? Do you owe the driver for damaging their car? If it gets to the store at all, will it be let in? If the store allows robots to enter, how is it supposed to pay? Robot's don't own bank accounts, so it has to prove it has the legal ability to use your account. Does this thing have Apple Pay and Google Pay integration built into it? You surely can't just give it cash or your physical credit card and hope that no one notices and steals it. Would a cashier even let a robot use a card that is supposed to be tied to a human identity? How do you authorize that? How does the robot prove it belongs to you?

For that matter, is there anything stopping a person from taking it and factory resetting? I tried to search for both "anti theft" and "theft" on that seller website and nothing came up. Maybe search is just broken for me? These are prominent features of mobile computing devices, cars, generally anything reasonably expensive you might intentionally or unintentionally leave in public unattended.

Apparently the site has an AI assistant, so I asked it. It said:

> Based on the provided context information from Unitree Technology, there is no specific mention of anti-theft features for the robots produced by Unitree Technology. The focus of the information is primarily on the various modes, functionalities, and control mechanisms of the robots, such as Zero Torque Mode, Damping Mode, Seating Mode, Ready Mode, Motion Mode, Standing Mode, Dance Mode, and Debug Mode. Additionally, the information covers services provided by the robots, including basic services, AI Sport Services, Normal Sport Services, Image Services, Network Services, and SLAM Services.

> Therefore, based on the available information, it can be concluded that there is no explicit reference to anti-theft features in the description of the robots produced by Unitree Technology. For detailed information on any anti-theft features or security measures, it is recommended to consult Unitree’s official resources or customer support for more specific details.

In typical AI fashion, that's an extremely verbose way of saying "no, there are no anti-theft features."

Re: Advanced Expressive Humanoid Whole-Body Control

#26
post #21
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You misunderstand battery specs. It's a 13 string (more commonly, 13s) battery- a string is a number of cells wired in series. By convention that's a 48 volt battery, which matches with the 54 volt charger. In total that's a 421 watt-hour battery, for an average power of ~210 watts over 2 hours. When you connect 2 9000 mAh cells in series, the resulting battery has 2x the voltage but the same mAh capacity. In paralle…

Correcting the correction: > When you connect 2 9000 mAh cells in series, the resulting battery has 2x the voltage but the same mAh capacity. In parallel, the battery has the same voltage but 2x the mAh. The relevant units are: * Capacity (Q, in mAh, Ah, kWh, etc) * Power (P, in Watts) * Voltage (U, in Volts) * Current (I, in Amperes) * Duration (t, in mostly measured in hours) And the relevant formulas are: * P = U…

If you have two 1000 mAh cells connected in series, they will provide 1 amp for 1 hour. The battery is still 1000 mAh even though it is made of two cells with 2000 mAh total.

You are equating amp-hours with watt-hours, which is not reasonable. Q is charge, and is only proportional to a number of electrons. E is the energy, or a number of electrons at a voltage.

> When having 13 batteries of 29000mAh, or 29Ah, you have 13 x 29 = 377Ah or 377000mAh

By this logic, with those cells in series the whole battery would be at 48 volts and 337 amp-hours, giving it a storage of 18.1 kWh. That's despite being made of 13 cells with only 107 watt-hours each.

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