Robot transformer Bioloid

I want a robot! So that he entertained me ... and danced himself ... and cooked ... and cleaned. While you continue to dream, I will talk a little bit about one wonderful robot that you can buy today for reasonable money and at the same time we will figure out with you whether he can dance, entertain and wash his socks. And this robot is called Bioloid. It is released by the Korean company Robotis. An interesting feature of Bioloid is that you can assemble several different types of robots from a set of parts, ranging from a simple barrier to a robot dinosaur or android. In fact, you can collect your own unique robots.


There are 4 modifications of this robot: Beginner Kit, Comprehensive Kit, Premium Kit and Expert.

Beginner Kit allows you to collect up to 14 different designs of the robot. All other models - up to 26 options. Using the Bioloid starter kit, you can assemble robots with up to 4 degrees of freedom. It is recommended for people who first encountered the construction of robots. So, quite simply, the Beginner Kit looks like:

Comprehensive Kit allows you to collect as a simple barrier with 1 degree of freedom, and a spider or humanoid with 18 degrees of freedom.

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Premium Kit is more expensive than the previous model due to the presence of: body plating, range finder, biaxial gyroscope, obstacle sensor and some other less important components. Otherwise they are identical.



Bioloid Expert Kit is designed for educational and research purposes. Contains a development environment under the C programming language, wireless communication with a computer, wireless camera and supports image recognition library.


Unlike the Bioloid Comprehensive Kit, Expert has: two additional servo drives, one additional controller, wireless module, wireless camera, two additional touch modules, aluminum case, and so on.

As already mentioned, you get not one, but a set of 26 different robots, each of which can be programmed for specific actions. A sort of robotic designer or even a transformer.


It looks like this:



Comes with a set of servomodules from which you can easily assemble any robot. Servomodules communicate with each other through an RS-485 interface and transmit data to the main control unit. Due to the unique identification number of each servo, eliminates possible confusion.

All that is required to assemble any robot is a set of elements from the kit and a screwdriver. Robots use the most common servo model Dynamixel AX-12, which can be ordered separately via an American online store for $ 45. They provide high output torque, good positioning accuracy, are networked and have flexible settings.



The brain of the robot is a CM-5 microcontroller based on atmega128, which is programmed via the Roboplus software supplied with the robot. It is equipped with a 128 Kb flash memory, 2 UART ports and 6 control keys. LED indicators provide visual feedback about the current state of the robot.

Dynamixel AX-S1 is used as a sensor. This is an all-in-one sensor module, it determines the sound source, measures the distance. Includes: IrDA receiver, 3 IR sensors, microphone.

Software Roboplus simple enough to understand the basics of working with him. You only need to know English, because it is not translated into Russian. Roboplus includes the following modules: RoboPlus - RoboPlus Task, RoboPlus Motion and RoboPlus Manager. For advanced users, there is also the RobotPlus Terminal and the Dynamixel Wizard.



There is a 3D simulation of the movements of the robot.



Example of working with the Roboplus program:



Who is this robot for?
Returning to the questions at the beginning of the article: no, you will not force him to erase his socks, but he will be able to dance, which this video clearly shows:



First of all, it is an excellent tool for learning the basics of robotics, so it is often ordered by scientific organizations and institutes. If you are a big radio amateur, the field of action in front of you opens up wide. It is only necessary to take into account that the cost of such a robot is not small, from $ 350 for Beginner in the USA and from 25,000 rubles in Russia.

We will wait for the appearance of even more intelligent and affordable robots. Apparently, with the modern pace of development, it remains to wait not long. By the way, if you are interested in following and taking part in various projects related to robotics, welcome to the WikiRobot group .

UPD . Due to the large number of questions about the place of purchase in PM, I am writing an update - you can buy Bioloid (except for the Expert series) on RoboticsLab .