NimbRo-OP2: Grown-up 3D Printed Open Humanoid Platform for Research

TL;DR

The paper introduces NimbRo-OP2X, an affordable, open-source, 135cm tall humanoid robot with 3D-printed exoskeleton, capable of human-scale interaction, and demonstrates its effectiveness through competition success.

Contribution

It presents a large, open-source humanoid robot platform that is affordable, lightweight, and easy to operate, filling a gap in research tools for larger robots.

Findings

Won RoboCup 2017 Humanoid League AdultSize Soccer

Demonstrated effective human-scale interaction

Showcased open-source hardware and software design

Abstract

The versatility of humanoid robots in locomotion, full-body motion, interaction with unmodified human environments, and intuitive human-robot interaction led to increased research interest. Multiple smaller platforms are available for research, but these require a miniaturized environment to interact with---and often the small scale of the robot diminishes the influence of factors which would have affected larger robots. Unfortunately, many research platforms in the larger size range are less affordable, more difficult to operate, maintain and modify, and very often closed-source. In this work, we introduce NimbRo-OP2X, an affordable, fully open-source platform in terms of both hardware and software. Being almost 135cm tall and only 18kg in weight, the robot is not only capable of interacting in an environment meant for humans, but also easy and safe to operate and does not require a gantry when doing so. The exoskeleton of the robot is 3D printed, which produces a lightweight and visually appealing design. We present all mechanical and electrical aspects of the robot, as well as some of the software features of our well-established open-source ROS software. The NimbRo-OP2X performed at RoboCup 2017 in Nagoya, Japan, where it won the Humanoid League AdultSize Soccer competition and Technical Challenge.