RoboPhilo at iHobby Expo 2007
The TR team spent last weekend at
the iHobby Expo, and we were impressed by the strong
robotics presence at the event. One of the high points was getting some
hands-on time with the brand new RoboPhilo, and
speaking with some of the minds behind it. RoboPhilo
is another addition to the growing number of “budget” humanoids on the
market. To keep the cost down, RoboPhilo uses
plastic frames instead of aluminum, and lower-cost hobby servos instead of
precision digital servos. Of course, some performance is sacrificed, but RoboPhilo makes up for it in a number of ways. For
starters, the articulation is great. It has 20 servos, including hip and
waist rotation. The hip and waist joints are pivoted by indirect-drive
systems, so less load is placed directly on the servo
axes.
The software is very
intuitive. It has a graphical interface for setting servo positions and
programming motion sequences, and an SDK for people who want to use some of the
robot’s more advanced features. The SDK will be necessary for accessing
the 8 analog inputs and setting up sensor-driven events. Unfortunately,
since the servos are analog, there is no "pose and capture"
capability for setting servo positions. We spoke with RoboPhilo’s
creators at the expo, and they said that a firmware update was in the works
that would add support for digital servos. They also said that there are
many add-ons coming, such as servo upgrades and sensors. We’ll be keeping
a close eye on RoboPhilo.com for updates.
We shot some video of RoboPhilo in action, and also of the software. We’ll
post the software video as soon as YouTube is
finished processing it.