Systems overview of Ono: a DIY reproducible open source social robot

One of the major obstacles in the study of HRI (human-robot interaction) with social robots is the lack of multiple identical robots that allow testing with large user groups. Often, the price of these robots prohibits using more than a handful. A lot of the commercial robots do not possess all the necessary features to perform specific HRI experiments and due to the closed nature of the platform, large modifications are nearly impossible. While open source social robots do exist, they often use high-end components and expensive manufacturing techniques, making them unsuitable for easy reproduction. To address this problem, a new social robotics platform, named Ono, was developed. The design is based on the DIY mindset of the maker movement, using off-the-shelf components and more accessible rapid prototyping and manufacturing techniques. The modular structure of the robot makes it easy to adapt to the needs of the experiment and by embracing the open source mentality, the robot can be easily reproduced or further developed by a community of users. The low cost, open nature and DIY friendliness of the robot make it an ideal candidate for HRI studies that require a large user group

Overview of technologies for building robots in the classroom

This paper aims to give an overview of technologies that can be used to implement robotics within an educational context. We discuss complete robotics systems as well as projects that implement only certain elements of a robotics system, such as electronics, hardware, or software. We believe that Maker Movement and DIY trends offers many new opportunities for teaching and feel that they will become much more prominent in the future. Products and projects discussed in this paper are: Mindstorms, Vex, Arduino, Dwengo, Raspberry Pi, MakeBlock, OpenBeam, BitBeam, Scratch, Blockly and ArduBlock

A motion system for social and animated robots

This paper presents an innovative motion system that is used to control the motions and animations of a social robot. The social robot Probo is used to study Human-Robot Interactions (HRI), with a special focus on Robot Assisted Therapy (RAT). When used for therapy it is important that a social robot is able to create an "illusion of life" so as to become a believable character that can communicate with humans. The design of the motion system in this paper is based on insights from the animation industry. It combines operator-controlled animations with low-level autonomous reactions such as attention and emotional state. The motion system has a Combination Engine, which combines motion commands that are triggered by a human operator with motions that originate from different units of the cognitive control architecture of the robot. This results in an interactive robot that seems alive and has a certain degree of "likeability". The Godspeed Questionnaire Series is used to evaluate the animacy and likeability of the robot in China, Romania and Belgium

A selective recruitment strategy for exploiting muscle-like actuator impedance properties

Two leading qualities of skeletal muscle that produce good performance in uncertain environments are damage tolerance and the ability to modulate impedance. For this reason, robotics researchers are greatly interested in discovering the key characteristics of muscles that give them these properties and replicating them in actuators for robotic devices. This paper describes a method to harness the redundancy present in muscle-like actuation systems composed of multiple motor units and shows that they have these same two qualities. By carefully choosing which motor units are recruited, the impedance viewed from the environment can be modulated while maintaining the same overall activation level. The degree to which the impedance can be controlled varies with total activation level and actuator length. Discretizing the actuation effort into multiple parts that work together, inspired by the way muscle fibers work in the human body, produces damage-tolerant behavior. This paper shows that this not only produces reasonably good resolutions without inordinate numbers of units, but gives the control system the ability to set the impedance along with the drive effort to the load

Ono, a DIY open source platform for social robotics

This paper describes the current status of Ono, an open source social robot that can be made using DIY tools and techniques. We believe that low-cost open source social robots provide advantages that current high-end robots do not have: they are well suited for large-scale studies and they are accessible for students and hobbyists. We describe the main parts of the current prototype: the modules, the frame, the foam and textile cover, and the control box and electronics. We also describe the planned improvements for our next prototype

The AMP-Foot 3, new generation propulsive prosthetic feet with explosive motion characteristics: design and validation

The last decades, rehabilitation has become a challenging context for mechatronical engineering. From the state-of-the-art it is seen that the field of prosthetics offers very promising perspectives to roboticist. Today’s prosthetic feet tend to improve amputee walking experience by delivering the necessary push-off forces while walking. Therefore, several new types of (compliant) actuators are developed in order to fulfill the torque and power requirements of a sound ankle-foot complex with minimized power consumption. At the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, the Robotics and Multibody Mechanics research group puts a lot of effort in the design and development of new bionic feet. In 2013, the Ankle Mimicking Prosthetic (AMP-) Foot 2, as a proof-of-concept, showed the advantage of using the explosive elastic actuator capable of delivering the full ankle torques ( $$\pm 120$$ ± 120  Nm) and power ( $$\pm 250$$ ± 250 W) with only a 60 W motor. In this article, the authors present the AMP-Foot 3, using an improved actuation method and using two locking mechanisms for improved energy storage during walking. The article focusses on the mechanical design of the device and validation of its working principle.This work and the publication costs of this article have been funded by the European Commissions 7th Framework Program as part of the project Cyberlegs under grant no. 287894 and by the European Commission ERC Starting grant SPEAR under grant no. 337596.Peer reviewe