Humanoid-universe.com

<t>Not sure I fully agree here.

LiDAR gives reliable, lighting-independent range data but is heavier, pricier, and gives sparser point clouds up close than stereo or depth cameras, which is why a lot of humanoids lean on stereo/depth cameras for near-field manipulation and reserve LiDAR (if ...

<t>@smuller Short answer:

SLAM in a working warehouse is harder than in a controlled lab mainly because the map keeps changing - pallets move, people walk through, lighting shifts near dock doors - so a lot of production systems lean on semi-static maps refreshed periodically rather than pure ...

<t>Follow-up question though -

Latency between a perceived event (like a slip) and a corrective control response matters enormously for balance - even 50-100ms of extra perception latency can be the difference between a smooth recovery and a fall, which is part of why a lot of balance-critical ...

<t>Respectfully, I think this undersells it a bit.

Estimating joint torque from motor current draw is cheap and requires no extra sensor, but it's less accurate than a dedicated torque sensor because it doesn't capture friction losses through the gearbox - good enough for coarse control, not ...

@dchen This is a great summary, thanks. Object occlusion by the robot's own hand during the final approach to a grasp is a common and annoying perception problem - the closer the hand gets to a good grasp position, the more it blocks the camera's view of exactly what it's about to grab.

@emily.kumar Agreed, and I'd add: Wet, oily, or otherwise low-friction objects are still a genuine edge case for most current hands, since tactile sensing and grasp-force controllers are typically tuned and validated on dry, higher-friction test objects.

<t>@dubois35 One nitpick -

Battery placement (torso-centered vs backpack vs distributed through the limbs) is a real tradeoff between center-of-mass/balance considerations and thermal/cooling access - a torso-centered pack helps balance but is harder to cool than a more exposed backpack placement ...

<t>@diego.moore6 This matches something I went through recently.

Battery placement (torso-centered vs backpack vs distributed through the limbs) is a real tradeoff between center-of-mass/balance considerations and thermal/cooling access - a torso-centered pack helps balance but is harder to cool ...

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

Joining an existing robotics community (FRC, university clubs, maker spaces) before going fully solo is a common and effective way to pick up practical fabrication and control skills faster than working entirely ...

<t>One nitpick -

Building a scoped-down project first - a single leg, an arm, or a torso-only upper body - is a common and sensible way to learn the mechanical and control fundamentals before committing to the cost and complexity of a full bipedal platform. Starting in simulation (even a ...