Video: neoDavid, A humanoid robot with variable stiffness actuation and dexterous manipulation skills

A video shows the humanoid robot neoDavid with variable stiffness actuation and dexterous manipulation skills. The wheeled humanoid neoDavid has 52 degrees of freedom, 95 brushless dc motors, 184 position and 3 force sensors, and a control frequency of 3 kHz. All finger joints can be controlled individually, giving the system exceptional dexterity. neoDavid's variable stiffness actuators enable high performance in tasks with fast collisions, highly energetic vibrations, or explosive motions such as hammering, using power-tools like a drill-hammer, or throwing a ball. The elastic structure preserving control concept was developed for compliant VSA robots and is described as the world's first experimentally validated globally asymptotically stable and passive motion tracking controller with link-side damping injection for VSA robots. A method to estimate grasp state integrates information from proprioception and vision, enabling compliant positioning of objects inside the hand. neoDavid's dexterous manipulation skills are further enabled through the M3T tracking framework, which incorporates visual feedback with forward kinematics and joint measurements to track the right arm and desired objects in real time while coping with severe object occlusions. The source presents first prototypes of VSAs and multiple generations of hands and body components, noting a shift in focus from technological basics to skills and applications.