Week 1, Principles and practices:

Sociable Humanoid Robot

Background

Robots can be defined as electromechanical incredible friends which may appeal to almost everyone. Nowadays, everyone is more likely to love robotics and the reason behind this because they can be as reliable and loyal as you decide through the design and program code you do to them. Practically, we can define robot as a designed machine with a brain that is capable to interact with the outside world and perform one or several tasks. They are around us everywhere, in all departments and sectors. Robots are taking place in crawl through sever pipes looking for leaks, build and manufacture the cars we are using. We hear about them in the news for example in the military, surveillance drones and bomb disposal robots. (Baichtal, 2014 )

With the technology and the development in the modern era, developing robots is an increasing trend where robots are replaced with humans in many of situations. This counted to be as an advantage because some situations the human operators are attached and endangered with risks of their industrial or significant personal requirements where they are supposed to perform some tasks. Hence, researching and developing different type of multi-functional robots that can perform different missions in different situations and scenarios has a high demand in all sectors such as medical, industrial, businesses and education.

According to multidisciplinary domain and accelerated advance, I believe that the robot sector will expand in personal social robots. Very soon, they will coexist with us and play key roles in our daily lives, leading us to be healthier, smarter, happier existence and safer. Consequently, for my final year project I have decided to build, design and control a compact mobile human robot that can greet, interact with humans.

Why to Design a Human Robot

The reason behind undertaking this final year project is because it provides a development of practical skills and knowledge needed to be qualified mechanical engineers. As the essential required knowledge and skills to create this project are: 1. mechanical design (cam/cad and modeling) 2. dynamics knowledge 3. mathematical modeling 4. stress analysis 5. simulation software 6. programing skills 7. automation and control 8. electronics and circuit design. 9. Manufacturing and fabrication skills I want to gather the experience and knowledge I have gained through all courses I have taken in Bahrain polytechnic previously and the new knowledge and skills I am going to gain through Fab lab Academy so I can implement them in one project with aim to gain in-depth theoretical knowledge and polish my skills to reach a higher level. In obvious, the project is challenging and at a higher scale comparing what I have conducted in previous projects and courses. However. Dedication and hard work will provide a great experience for prospective engineers.

In precis, the entirety of the project will demonstrate the professional skills and knowledge acquired to be mechanical engineering degree graduates and robotics builders. As it is counted to be a massive step to the industrial mechanical and robotics world, control strategies, hardware and automation.

Similar projects around the world

According to IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, SoftBank has launched the world’s first social humanoid robot that can recognize human emotion and faces. It is able to interact with humans through talking or the screen touch. The robot is capable to move around, perceive and interact with its surroundings and exhibiting body language. At first it was industrially produced for business to business purposes but later it was adapted for business to community purposes. Currently, over 2,000 companies and societies like schools, shops and hospitals have adopted this robot to be an assistant to guide, inform and welcome visitors in a creative way. Pepper has 20 DOF and it 1.2m tall, it has 17 joints for expressive and graceful body language. Its locomotion is designed to be omnidirectional wheels where it allows it to mobile around smoothly. The purpose of Pepper look’s and size’s is to make it acceptable and appropriate in daily life to interact with people. Pepper is designed with a wide range of multimodal expressive behaviors and gestures. (Pande & Gelin, 2018)