Colombian engineer seeks to develop a 'robot dog' that does domiciles

Robotics is one of the areas of knowledge that are presenting the most innovation at the moment. In fact, one of the last projects to be announced in the country is being developed by the Working Group on New Design and Manufacturing-Automation Technologies (DIMA) of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia (UNAL) Bogotá Headquarters, where mechatronic engineer Juan Santacoloma is building a four-legged robot “whose initial objective is to transport objects from one place to another, with an autonomy that allows it to overcome obstacles and move around satisfactorily,” said the educational institution.

He also said that “one of the biggest challenges to make the prototype was funding, because the pandemic stopped work for a long time, since access to the Laboratory was only 4 hours a day. In addition, with the increase in the dollar, the prices of components, which are imported, also rose.”

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According to the report published by the UNAL, 'To' (as it called its quadruped) has 12 motors, each with its respective controller; this gives each leg three degrees of freedom, a functionality similar to that performed by the human leg.

But this is not all, because it can detect obstacles, making use of a camera “that would work like the eyes and provide information about the depth of what the robot “sees”. This is how it is planned to control it via Wi-Fi.

“Our mission has always been to develop knowledge, and now we face the challenges of understanding how these robots have been made around the world [...], but we have managed to make the prototype with more affordable materials, sacrificing little in performance. The mission was to give the University the opportunity to have a robot at their fingertips, so that students learn and also develop knowledge with something done here, without having to search or acquire an additional model,” explained Santacoloma.

The materials with which this robot was developed were aluminum, thought to be resistant to accidents. It also contains parts made in 3D printing. In addition, “it has two batteries that give the robot a working range of between 2 to 4 hours”.

According to UNAL, it is expected that the robot will work on the Integrated and Automated Robotic Platform (PRIA), with which they seek to integrate, “into a unified software platform, all the robots in the Laboratory, so that when using them they can perform collaborative tasks among themselves.”

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