Quasi-Direct Drive for Low-Cost Compliant Robotic Manipulation
This addresses the need for low-cost, compliant robotic manipulation for widespread use in human environments, representing a novel paradigm rather than an incremental improvement.
The paper tackles the problem of high cost and lack of force control in robots for safe deployment in human environments by proposing Quasi-Direct Drive actuation, resulting in a prototype arm called Blue that costs less than $5,000, has a 7.5Hz bandwidth, and 4mm repeatability.
Robots must cost less and be force-controlled to enable widespread, safe deployment in unconstrained human environments. We propose Quasi-Direct Drive actuation as a capable paradigm for robotic force-controlled manipulation in human environments at low-cost. Our prototype - Blue - is a human scale 7 Degree of Freedom arm with 2kg payload. Blue can cost less than $5000. We show that Blue has dynamic properties that meet or exceed the needs of human operators: the robot has a nominal position-control bandwidth of 7.5Hz and repeatability within 4mm. We demonstrate a Virtual Reality based interface that can be used as a method for telepresence and collecting robot training demonstrations. Manufacturability, scaling, and potential use-cases for the Blue system are also addressed. Videos and additional information can be found online at berkeleyopenarms.github.io