14 DAY TRIAL // I don't know about you, but I used to be a great fan of the mecha mange genre (you know, those animated series with huge robots that ran around, saving the world from evil forces, that sort of things), and it looks like there are plenty of hardcore fans out there as well, especially in Asian countries (where this genre originated, after all), that want to do more than watch cartoons: they want to turn them into reality.
And one of the best examples of this passion turned to life is the Hubo FX-1 developed by the Korean Humanoid Robot Research Center, or HUBO, a 2-meter monster that looks like a more or less ordinary armchair that has just decided to grow a pair of legs. As the researchers that developed this robot inform us, via Aving, the main idea behind this project was to create a fully functional robot that could carry around a 100-kilos heavy person and also mimic human motion, up to the point where it would be able to carry out complex operations (as for example, climbing a set of stairs).
The Hubo FX-1 is still far from that objective, but, nevertheless, the first important steps in that direction have already been taken. Thus, the robot has no less than 12 degrees of freedom, is controlled via a joystick and sports an internal computer running Windows XP (imagine what a blue screen of death would do in such a case).
One of the most important problems in the case of such a huge machine is that of stability. Thus, in order to assure the fact that the Hubo FX-1 won't fall down at the first bump it encounters in its path, the robot has been fitted with a wide variety of sensors, namely a 3-axis force/torque sensor which measures a normal force and 2 moments, a gyration sensor, a body inclination sensor, as well as inclination sensors in both of its feet.
The robot is powered by a 400/800 W AC Servo engine, capable of attaining a maximum of 3000 RPM and a torque of 2.39 Nm at 800 W. It has a height of around 1.75 meters, weighs 150 kilos, and, as mentioned before, it can support a maximum payload of around 100 kilos. The device is far from being completed, as it can't carry its own power source yet, but the developers are working on this issue, as well as several others.
And since a picture is worth a thousand words, check out this video clip of the Hubo FX-1 in action.
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