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COMAN

Details

COMAN is a humanoid robot designed to safely interact with people. Unlike most humanoids, it doesn't have stiff joints: Its arms and legs can sense applied forces and move in a compliant way.

Creator
Italian Institute of Technology (IIT)
Country
Italy 🇮🇹
Year
2012
Type
Humanoids, Research
Creator
Italian Institute of Technology (IIT)
Country
Italy 🇮🇹
Year
2012
Type
Humanoids, Research

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Did You Know?

COMAN stands for COmpliant huMANoid.
The robot recently met and shook hands with Italian prime minister Enrico Letta.
Its torso casing is available in red, dark green, light blue, and dark blue.

Specs

FEATURES
Equipped with torque and position control of all joints. Able to stabilize itself on uneven terrain or when pushed around.
HEIGHT
95 cm | 37.4 in (height at neck)
LENGTH
20.5 cm | 8 in
WIDTH
41 cm | 16 in
WEIGHT
33 kg | 72 lb
SPEED
2.5 km/h | 1.6 mph

SENSORS
Position and torque sensing on every joint. Six-axis force/torque sensing on ankles and wrists. Inertial measurement unit (IMU) in the torso.
ACTUATORS
Over 30 torque-controlled brushless DC motors, including 14 custom series elastic elements for enhanced compliance.
POWER
29-V lithium ion polymer battery, 2 hours of operation
COMPUTING
Two on-board PC/104 embedded computers and custom DSP joint controller.
SOFTWARE
Linux with Xenomai real time framework
DEGREES OF FREEDOM (DOF)
31 (Neck: 2 DoF; Arm: 7 DoF x 2; Waist: 3 DoF; Leg: 6 DoF x 2)
MATERIALS
Aluminum skeletal structure. ABS plastic casing. Titanium torso.
COST
N/A
STATUS
Ongoing
WEBSITE
http://www.iit.it/coman

History

COMAN evolved from two other humanoid projects: iCub (2007) and cCub (2010). The original iCub was a traditional position controlled humanoid, and cCub was a compliant biped. For COMAN, the goal was to create a robot that could safely interact with objects and people, even in the event of a collision. To achieve that, torque sensors were incorporated into each of the motors, providing active torque control. Passive series elastic elements were also built into 14 of the key actuators to provide hybrid active/passive control. COMAN is part of the European Union-funded AMARSi project to advance whole-body manipulation, locomotion, and safe human-robot interaction.