How much does connector reliability actually contribute to field failures?

[deborahperez]

@omar.farouk 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.

[park44]

@deborahperez I'd take that specific number with a grain of salt, honestly. It's common for a single humanoid to mix actuator types by joint - harmonic drives or hybrid geared actuators at the hips and shoulders where sustained torque matters most, and lower-ratio QDD-style actuators at ankles and knees where backdrivability and impact tolerance matter more. Anti-backlash techniques in production actuators range from mechanical preloading (spring-loaded gear meshes) to purely software compensation that models and corrects for known backlash in the control loop.

[carol38]

@park44 Speaking from personal experience here, 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. 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.

[greta78]

@carol38 I dealt with almost this exact situation. Encoder resolution requirements scale with how tightly you need to control low-speed motion - coarse encoders are fine for open-loop swing phases but cause visible stutter during precise placement or fine force control. Field-oriented control (FOC) tuning directly affects how smooth torque output feels - poorly tuned current loops show up as audible whine and jerky low-speed motion, while well-tuned FOC can make even a geared actuator feel fairly fluid.

[joseph31]

@greta78 I don't think that's quite right, for what it's worth. Anti-backlash techniques in production actuators range from mechanical preloading (spring-loaded gear meshes) to purely software compensation that models and corrects for known backlash in the control loop.