This is my real life terminator/Data from Star Trek/Westworld type humanoid robots project. It is a long term project. I plan to post updates occasionally to share my progress and seek feedback, suggestions, advice, etc. So far I have plans to build Adam, Eve, and Abel robots. All of these are Bible characters. I want the robots to ultimately move like a human, be able to walk, run, jump, do chores, dance, do sports, have conversations realistically, paint, do sculpture, make more robots, etc.
I plan to do most of the electronics custom - so custom microcontrollers, custom motor controllers, custom power supply, custom battery management system, custom sensor support circuitry, etc. I am a electronics beginner so guidance on these parts is welcomed.
Robot Features Planned
I plan to start out making the right arm and hand, rigging them up with servo motors, connecting that up to a pc, and getting it to grasp. From there I will develop the head and torso just enough to be able to code the robot arm to make his other arm and the rest of his own body for me. The bot will have silicone skin and look realistic and move realistic. It will have artificial lungs for cooling. It will have spandex ligaments and cable drive systems to imitate muscles. It will have sensors to feel if it bumps into things and it will have webcam eyes. It will have a speaker in the mouth to speak with and the mouth will move to lipsync what it is saying. It will have facial expressions. It will have advanced artificial intelligence. It will run on battery and/or power cable depending on the situation.
First of all, I ended up caving in and doing a full blown 3d model blueprint of the robot's entire skeletal structure to scale along with outer shape mesh and then modeled out every actuator cable "muscle" and labeled each of them and modeled all of its motors and placed them and modeled various other bits like the main onboard pc and cooling systems (artificial lungs and artificial heart). Also modeled its batteries and placed them. Only had to do half of the body since the other half of body is symmetrical. I realized that with the tight tolerances I'm dealing with, I had to make custom servos and custom pcbs for the servos control and custom pulley systems to "down-gear" the servos. I also realized that with such tight tolerances I needed to 3d model everything to figure out where to fit everything since it will all be a tight fit with little room for error and once I mount a servo, it is a real pain to move it later. The 3d modeling blueprint job was a major project in itself but well worth it in helping me visualize everything better and figure out where to locate everything specifically. I also made blueprints for the motor controller and microcontroller custom circuitry.
I also purchased the main brains pc to be mounted in the torso. I even purchased cameras to be the eyes for it. The main brains pc will be a mini itx motherboard gaming pc basically.
actual build I went with:
Intel Core i5-10400 2.9 GHz 6-Core Processor - $165
MSI MPG B560I GAMING EDGE WIFI Mini ITX LGA1200 Motherboard - $170
G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory - $140
Western Digital Blue SN550 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive - $99
DC 12V input 300W high power pico DC-ATX 24Pin mini ITX - $20
GOLF CART DC BUCK CONVERTER 20 AMP 48V 36V VOLT VOLTAGE REDUCER REGULATOR TO 12V - $20
I will use 10 in series lithium batteries to produce 30v-42v input power into the 12v regulator which will feed the 300W atx 24pin mini ITX power supply. Note, however, that as with all power systems, I will have both a wall plug AC to DC converter custom power supply to run off wall power and a battery power supply to run off battery power so that the robot has multiple powering options - ie able to run off wall to assist its internal batteries while charging. It will have a retractable plug that comes out of its lower back to plug itself into wall outlets when it walks into a room and needs to recharge or run for extended periods while its batteries remain topped off for room changes or ventures into outdoors. It will have the ability to strap on a external battery backpack optionally for extended operation without access to AC power. This is useful for operations like sports or mowing the lawn. It will have multiple external battery backpacks so that it can have one charging while using the other for constant uptime.
For the eye cameras I went with: ELP USB camera 1080p 2 megapixel, wide angle, low light x2 for $98.42
This gaming pc in the chest of the robot will run all the AI and high level planning and movement decisions. This will communicate via USB to a series of Arduino mega barebones custom microcontrollers located throughout the robot's body in order to give movement instructions to the Arduinos and also retrieve sensor feedback from the Arduinos which will be monitoring joint angle positions with mini potentiometers, strain gauges on various pressure points to measure touch sensing, amp current measuring boards (acs712) to measure amount of power being drawn by motors for collision detection and weight of exertion estimation for holding things or w/e other interactions with environment are being detected, etc. So, many inputs will be retrieved by the main gaming pc and its AI systems will make decisions and make course corrections based on all this feedback it gets from sensory systems.
Note: I did at one point begin sewing in MG996r servo motors into the arms of the robot only to realize only like 4 of these can fit in the entire arm due to their very non sleek profile and bulky form factor. The way hobby servos cram the motor control circuits, the gear system, the potentiometer, and the dc motors into a box forms a bulky shape that doesn't fit into my robot body design well at all. So I am creating custom servos where the control board, dc motor, down-gearing systems, and potentiometer is located throughout the robot anywhere space is available but not necessarily will they be located in the same location - we have flexibility to place them spread out wherever we want this way. This makes me able to fit like 25-30 motors into the robot's arm instead of only 4! Much more efficient use of space this way. Also, by using Archimedes style compact pulley down-gearing system rather than gears, I lower the sound the robot gives off significantly and save on space and weight. The pulley system I am planning to use was inspired by an episode of Gold Rush where they used a "pulley block" to pull a barge out of a river and this idea was expanded on and explained here:
https://youtu.be/M2w3NZzPwOMOnce I eliminated all ideas of using commercial servos and went into building my own, I realized it is WAY WAY WAY cheaper to buy your own servo motor individual components and build your own custom servos than it is to buy commercial servos, ESPECIALLY once you get into really high powered stuff. For finger joints, I bought size 2430 brushless dc motors 5800kv 24amps 7.4v 200watts at $11/each and IRLR7843PBF n-channel mosfets as the main power switching for custom motor controllers. This mosfet is to-252 form factor and 161A continuous drain current and can handle 620a pulsed drain current. It's super small and flat and a very powerful selection to drive the motors. Arduino mega barebones (custom) will control the motor controllers. I will be using brushless motors exclusively, even for the smallest muscles. They are just so superior to brushed motors and quieter etc). I also bought little volume adjustment wheel potentiometers which I will customize and use to measure joint angles of all the robot's joints. For mid sized muscles, 2430 motors will be littered throughout the robot's body for most smaller muscles. Also will be using the slightly more powerful 1/16 scale RC brushless dc motors for many muscles in the robot as well which are 300w motors 12.6v 24amps at $11 each. Then for even more substantial muscles I'll be using size 3650 brushless dc motors 1/10 scale RC at 13v 69amps 900w 3900kv at $15/each (Ebay). For even bigger muscles I'll use 1/8 scale RC brushless dc motors size 3660 1200w 92a 13v at $19 each. Then for the very biggest muscles I'll use 4082 brushless dc motors at 36-52v 64a 3400w 930kv inrunner style typically used for electric skateboard scooters at $65 each . These will handle things like thighs and calves and being so big we will use not many of these only for special monster power muscles in the human body. The 4082 motors are not strong enough to replace a human quadricep alone, so each muscle of the quadricep with have a 4082 assigned so that like 4 of them represent all 4 muscles of the quadricep etc. This applies to all the muscles - multiple motors can be used to build up the necessary torque to match human strength and speed. The brushless dc motors are able to provide the best efficiency, power, low weight, run quietly, and can be precision controlled so they are amazing for this project and brushed motors are trash by comparison. For me to buy commercial servos that can put out power numbers like I just listed, I'd be spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars per servo. But since I'm just buying the motors and doing my own down-gearing, potentiometer installs, and my own control PCB systems, I save a fortune and this project is very reasonable to afford all of the sudden!
BTW, I'll be using Windows as the operating system for the main pc in the robot's chest. By setting a very high process priority to the exes running the AI, Windows is able to act like a realtime operating system IMO. Plus I already have a large amount of code developed for windows operating system that can be reused for this project. This code comes from my past experience developing AI for video game botting.
Also, I managed to figure out how to make a robot learn and think and communicate in English in a overarching philosophical way and have began to code this advanced AI system. This coding project will take decades and will all be coded from scratch in C++. I have wrapped my head around it and have already made huge progress on this. It took me some years to figure out where to even start and wrap my head around this monster job.
Project website: artbyrobot.com
Full humanoid robot building playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhd7_i6zzT5-MbwGz2gMv6RJy5FIW_lfn