Design of the Humanoid Robot TOCABI
Mathew Schwartz, Jaehoon Sim, Junewhee Ahn, Soonwook Hwang, Yisoo Lee, Jaeheung Park
Abstract
The rapidly improving mechanical systems and control algorithms of humanoid robots brings them ever-closer to integration with humans in-situ. As this trend begins a process of research robots to general products, the dissemination of design decisions and application-specific compromises becomes as equally important as the underlying technology itself. Like-wise, the newly discovered applications and societal integration raise new questions for research, including how a humanoid robot should look - and what technological innovations are needed to support such look. While the uncanny valley is often the forefront of humanoid robot design discussions, we present a new full-size humanoid robot named TOCABI, that side-steps the valley and brings forth the question of academic challenges needed to support a new paradigm of industrial design for humanoid robots.