Anyone building actuators around off-the-shelf drone motors?

[scott21]

@dchen I'd push back on this a bit. Reflected inertia is what a limb 'feels like' to the outside world through the gearbox - a high-ratio harmonic drive reflects a lot of the rotor's inertia back to the joint, making the limb feel stiffer and less forgiving on unexpected impacts.

[kwilliams]

I dealt with almost this exact situation. 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. 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 commercial hips and knees.

[choi98]

I'll believe the stronger version of that claim when it's independently verified. Motor cogging torque (the 'notchy' feel from magnet-to-slot interactions) shows up as small periodic torque ripple that can translate into visible joint jitter at low speeds - it's usually mitigated with skewed magnets, better current control, or software compensation tables.

[noah_pate]

From what I've seen: A lot of the per-joint cost in a modern actuator isn't the motor - it's the combination of a precision gearbox, integrated encoders, torque sensing, and the driver electronics, all of which have to fit inside a housing the size of a fist. This whole thread is a good reminder how young this field still is.

[williams84]

@noah_pate I dealt with almost this exact situation. Backdrivability is the property that lets an external force move a joint without destroying the gearbox or the motor - it's central to both safe human-robot contact and to letting a leg comply naturally when the robot stumbles.

[scott.andersson5]

This lines up with my experience. Backdrivability is the property that lets an external force move a joint without destroying the gearbox or the motor - it's central to both safe human-robot contact and to letting a leg comply naturally when the robot stumbles.

[park44]

I don't think that's quite right, for what it's worth. Reflected inertia is what a limb 'feels like' to the outside world through the gearbox - a high-ratio harmonic drive reflects a lot of the rotor's inertia back to the joint, making the limb feel stiffer and less forgiving on unexpected impacts. Makes me wonder how this looks in another five years.

[pierregreen]

@park44 I dealt with almost this exact situation. Backdrivability is the property that lets an external force move a joint without destroying the gearbox or the motor - it's central to both safe human-robot contact and to letting a leg comply naturally when the robot stumbles.

[scott.andersson5]

@pierregreen Agreed, and I'd add: For dynamic walking and recovery, joint control bandwidth in the tens of Hz range is typically necessary to react to a stumble before the center of mass gets too far outside the support polygon. Boston Dynamics' commercial electric Atlas switched fully from hydraulic to QDD-style electric actuation, ending up quieter and lighter with comparable or better dynamic performance than the old hydraulic platform. Kind of makes me think about how different this all looked even three years ago.

[dubois35]

@scott.andersson5 Respectfully, I think this undersells it a bit. Quasi-direct drive (QDD) actuators use lower gear ratios (roughly 6:1 to 10:1) paired with high-torque-density motors, trading some peak force density for backdrivability and low reflected inertia, which matters a lot for impact tolerance and fall recovery.