Anthropomorphic robotic waist

Abstract

As a part of telepresence technology development, EDGAR, Expressions Display and Gesturing Avatar Robot has been developed. In order to impersonate a human being, the avatar robot needs to be designed and programmed so that human gestures can be performed naturally and smoothly. This project will be focusing on the development and analysis of waist mechanism on EDGAR robot in order to impersonate the human torso gesture motion. This project will observe the mechanical design of the current waist mechanism of EDGAR and implement the control system of the actuators. The observation consist of evaluation on EDGAR waist range of motion, derivation of kinematic equation, and actuators calibration. Actuators are controlled through Arduino microcontroller. Control system will ensure the EDGAR waist perform smoothly in doing human waist gesture. After several evaluation and experiment on EDGAR waist mechanism, it has shown its capability in impersonating human gesture. EDGAR waist can perform human torso gestures, however it has not been able to fully achieve human torso gesture speed. Last of all, the movement has shown a smooth and natural performance in performing human gesture.