3D printed legs allow robotics experiments to run smoothly

$2,500 worth of humanoid robot legs built from 3D printed parts and off-the-shelf components won’t break even right now. But such low-cost devices could enable researchers to easily test and train AI-powered robotic programs in the animal body during real-world experiments.

New products available LeRobot Humanoid this project is based on machine learning and AI development platform Hugging Face. The comprehensive release provides robot builders and researchers with access to funding, 3D printed component files, wiring diagrams, and physical assembly instructions—and includes software tools for controlling and controlling the robot in the flesh and in simulation.

“If you’re looking for a super humanoid robot, this isn’t it,” according to Virgil Batorobotics engineer at Hugging Face, in a blog post related to other colleagues. “If you’re looking for a humanoid that you can design, understand, program, instrument, simulate, and use experiments for learning, this is the robot we’re trying to build.”

The Hugging Face team wanted to “balance between affordability, mechanical efficiency, and ease of assembly.” Its design, built around printed parts, off-the-shelf components, and low-cost operating systems and electronics, means the bipedal robotic platform can be scaled up and modified to allow for rapid testing and development, rather than being “one useful prototype on display.”

Such innovation also aims to provide a “robotics loop” in which prototype robots can be tested and validated in physical experiments, according to Batto and colleagues. The results, which come from real world trials can help inform and improve simulations used for training robot behavior.