Humanoid-universe.com

<t>@barbara.jones This lines up with my experience.

Torque sensing is frequently integrated directly into the actuator housing via strain gauges near the output flange or spring element, rather than bolted on as an external sensor, to save weight and reduce noise from mechanical slop.

Reminds ...

<t>Slightly off-topic, but related:

Apptronik raised a $520 million Series A at a $5 billion valuation (bringing total funding to roughly $935 million), with its Apollo humanoid reportedly being tested by Mercedes-Benz - a notable data point for how much capital a single humanoid startup can now ...

<t>Worth being a little skeptical of the marketing angle here.

RSS (Robotics: Science and Systems), ICRA, and the IEEE-RAS Humanoids conference are commonly cited as the most directly relevant venues for someone specifically interested in legged locomotion and humanoid control research, as ...

<t>@greta.carter Ran into exactly this myself.

A commonly cited skill gap in new-grad applicants is practical systems integration experience - many candidates are individually strong in ML or in mechanical design, but comparatively few have hands-on experience getting perception, planning, and ...

<t>@elarsen69 I see it a little differently.

Cycloidal drives are a less common but real alternative to harmonic drives - lower cost at high ratios, decent efficiency, but historically bulkier for the same torque density, which is part of why they haven't fully displaced harmonic drives in ...

<t>Pretty much this. One thing to add:

Proprioception (the robot's sense of its own joint angles, velocities, and forces) tends to get less attention than flashy vision systems, even though a lot of balance and manipulation failures trace back to proprioceptive noise or miscalibration rather than ...

<t>@jessica_faro Short answer:

Tactile skin arrays have improved a lot, but 'good enough to matter' really depends on the task - coarse contact detection across a large area is fairly mature, while fine, high-resolution force distribution sensing (like a human fingertip) is still the harder ...

<t>@olga_lind Follow-up question though -

Whole-body control (WBC) formulates locomotion and manipulation as a single optimization problem across all joints simultaneously, respecting contact constraints and task priorities - it's more general than ZMP-only approaches but is computationally ...

<t>@emily.kumar That's the official framing, at least - reality tends to lag a bit.

AgiBot reportedly sold around 5,168 units, putting it roughly in the same commercial volume range as Unitree among Chinese manufacturers, and worth watching alongside the more internationally recognized Chinese ...

<t>@shill +1 to this. Worth adding:

RSS (Robotics: Science and Systems), ICRA, and the IEEE-RAS Humanoids conference are commonly cited as the most directly relevant venues for someone specifically interested in legged locomotion and humanoid control research, as opposed to broader AI/ML ...