and torques. This would take most of my waking hours
through the month of October.
We already had four of the Torxis. Two were the
3,200 oz/in (model i0600) and two were the 1,600
oz/in. (model i0800). After speaking with Collin at
Invensicience, I found out that they also had heavy duty
servo brackets for this style servo. I placed a rush order
for four more servos and enough brackets to rebuild the
complete lower section of the biped.
The New Design
These new heavy servos would not work with any of
the previous designs that called for lightweight legs and
high powered servos. We quickly came up with a design
that Girts could test out in the simulator. We wanted to
be able to step over the concrete block, pass through the
doorway, and turn the valve. To fully actuate those types
of movements usually requires five servos on each leg.
We wanted to do it with four. So, we borrowed a trick
from the shuffle style bipeds and made really long toes
and positioned them sideways. In this manner, we could
lift one leg up and still have the center of mass under the
foot. (See Figure 1.) No side to side tilting is needed.
SERVO 12.2013 49
Figure 2.
Figure 1.
