Very nice.
What makes this work is the motors.[1] It's using 3-phase drone prop motors with no gear reduction. With direct drive, the mechanics of the joints are simple. Not too expensive, either. Each motor is about US$120.
I used to work on legged running back in the 1990s. But there were no motors good enough to build a small machine like this back then. All we had were R/C servos, gearboxes, and screw drive actuators. So I was stuck in simulation. All the early legged robots were mechanical nightmares. Springs, cables, pulleys, worm gears, harmonic drives... Now, at last, enough torque in a small package.
What you want in a leg muscle is well known - something that behaves like a spring/damper combo for which you can set the spring constant, the damping constant, and the spring's zero point. People have been trying to do that by mechanical means for decades. There were pneumatic systems, hydraulic systems, things with springs, pulleys, and wires, and a kludge called a "series elastic actuator", which is a stiff spring-damper combo in series with a screw drive actuator. They're all terrible.
"You cannot strip the teeth of a magnetic field" - GE electric locomotive sales rep, early 20th century.[2] That's why they can drop this thing and have it spring back. Try that with any of the mechanical nightmares and the results will not be good.
[1] https://store.tmotor.com/goods.php?id=774
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24288264
What makes this work is the motors.[1] It's using 3-phase drone prop motors with no gear reduction. With direct drive, the mechanics of the joints are simple. Not too expensive, either. Each motor is about US$120.
I used to work on legged running back in the 1990s. But there were no motors good enough to build a small machine like this back then. All we had were R/C servos, gearboxes, and screw drive actuators. So I was stuck in simulation. All the early legged robots were mechanical nightmares. Springs, cables, pulleys, worm gears, harmonic drives... Now, at last, enough torque in a small package.
What you want in a leg muscle is well known - something that behaves like a spring/damper combo for which you can set the spring constant, the damping constant, and the spring's zero point. People have been trying to do that by mechanical means for decades. There were pneumatic systems, hydraulic systems, things with springs, pulleys, and wires, and a kludge called a "series elastic actuator", which is a stiff spring-damper combo in series with a screw drive actuator. They're all terrible.
"You cannot strip the teeth of a magnetic field" - GE electric locomotive sales rep, early 20th century.[2] That's why they can drop this thing and have it spring back. Try that with any of the mechanical nightmares and the results will not be good.
[1] https://store.tmotor.com/goods.php?id=774
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24288264