DARwIn-OP Trains for Robocup

Team DARwIn has posted its qualification video for Robocup 2013.  The robot featured is actually DARwIn OP, a slightly tortured acronym for Dynamic Anthropomorphic Robot with Intelligence – Open Platform.  It’s an open-source humanoid robot design based on pricey but performant Robotis Dynamixel servos.  What’s most impressive is DARwIn’s autonomy: in the video below, you can see it visually locating the ball and the goal posts, getting into position behind the ball, and kicking it through the goal.  This is not remote controlled; the robot is doing all that on its own.

Team DARwIn is based out of the Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory (RoMeLa) at Virginia Tech.  They are regrettably negligent about updating their web site, but it looks like the specs haven’t changed too much.  DARwIn-OP stands about 45 cm tall, weighs 2.8 kg, and uses 20 Dynamixel RX-28M servos.  (These are like the standard RX-28 servos but with a magnetic encoder.)  It uses an onboard CompuLab fit-PC2i computer, a Logitech camera, and of course an IMU.

RoboCup 2013 qualifiers end on March 15th, so keep your eyes peeled for more impressive videos of robot athletes in the next month.  The actual competition itself will be held in Holland at the end of June.