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214 points meetpateltech | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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baron816 ◴[] No.44368529[source]
I’m optimistic about humanoid robotics, but I’m curious about the reliability issue. Biological limbs and hands are quite miraculous when you consider that they are able to constantly interact with the world, which entails some natural wear and tear, but then constantly heal themselves.
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didip ◴[] No.44368916[source]
I think those problems can be solved with further research in material science, no? Combined that with very responsive but low torque servos, I think this is a solvable problem.
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michaelt ◴[] No.44370705[source]
It's a simple matter of the number of motors you have. [1]

Assume every motor has a 1% failure rate per year.

A boring wheeled roomba has 3 motors. That's a 2.9% failure rate per year, and 8.6% failures over 3 years.

Assume a humanoid robot has 43 motors. That gives you a 35% failure rate per year, and 73% over 3 years. That ain't good.

And not only is the humanoid robot less reliable, it's also 14.3x the price - because it's got 14.3x as many motors in it.

[1] And bearings and encoders and gearboxes and control boards and stuff... but they're largely proportional to the number of motors.

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mewpmewp2 ◴[] No.44371102[source]
Would it be possible to reduce the failure rates?
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michaelt ◴[] No.44371392[source]
To an extent, yes.

For example, an industrial robot arm with 6 motors achieves much higher reliability than a consumer roomba with 3 motors. They do this with more metal parts, more precision machining, much more generous design tolerances, and suchlike. Which they can afford by charging 100x as much per unit.

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bamboozled ◴[] No.44372110{3}[source]
Also factory robots arms are probably operating in highly sterile, dry environments? How would working in a muddy / dusty / wet environment change this?
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1. Robelius ◴[] No.44373543{4}[source]
When designing hardware, you usually define what the expected operating environments are. Some typical environmental considerations are the min/max temperature, debris ingress, shock & vibration. If you know your product is going to operate in an area where material is likely to enter the product, then you can either try to keep that material out (sealing the product up), or make sure that dust entering the product won't cause failures (i.e. electrical shorts won't happen on a board by covering exposed areas with glue or making sure a mechanism can crush/clear particles). It's not necessarily more complexity in the product to navigate these constrains, but it is another thing to consider in the design.

For example, if you're making a phone that is going to be sold around the world, then you're going to worry about arctic/equator temps (will some of your components melt or ICs fail), salty sea air (will the product begin to corrode for people living by a beach), or fast moving elevators (will the speakers pop from a sudden change in pressure).

You can check out this manufacturers robot arms as some examples of existing products. They list some data sheets for their robot arms, including some arms that are IPxx rated. I don't think looking at robot arms is a 1to1 comparison for what you could expect from a humanoid robot since the considerations in the design process are going to be different.

website is kuka dot com/en-at/products/robotics-systems/industrial-robots/kr-agilus