Valter

valter-320pxW.jpg

ROS Software Maintainer: Alexey Maistrenko valtertherobot@gmail.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine

The Valter is a mobile wheeled-based manipulation platform with anthropomorphic torso.

Valter was conceived as experimental platform for provisioning of various types of household services. As a matter of fact it is also a research and educational platform.

I see Valter mainly as an educational resource / platform for students.

Valter's autonomous behavior currently based on the following ROS packages:

rtabmap_ros, rgbd_slam, moveit!, move_base, dwa_local_planner, ORK find_object_2d, object_recognition, openni_kinect, openni_launch and more...

Specification

Components graph

Valter components graph

Features list

Feature

Value

Height

1.85 m

Weight

~ 110 kg

Case material

Duralumin

On-board computing means

RPi3 array, AT921SAM7S based controllers

Communication

Wi-Fi IEEE_802.11, Bluetooth 4.1, IR, Ethernet (for debug)

Power

12V car battry, 5V

Vision system

2 Kinect, stereo head camera system, navigation camera, back-view camera, manipulator camera, charger camera

Odometry motion sensors

Wheel encoders, compass, Kinect

Obstacle avoidance back-up system

IR Sharp proximity sensors array (GP2Y0A41SK0F), ultrasonic range finders array, IR bumper array (used also for IR control)

Microphones

1 high-gain mic for speech recognition, array of microphones for sound direction detection

Charger

Motorized / adjustable charger module for wall outlets

Sensing

over 30 force-measurement sensors

Arm lift up payload

6 kg (joints are in max torque applied position)

Lower manipulator paylod

1 kg (fully expanded)

Basic Configuration

  • Solidworks project

Solidworks assembly

TF Tree

Kinematic specification

Joint

DOF \ Description

Platform

Unconstrained holonomic 2-wheeled

Torso

Yaw, Tilt

L&R Shoulder

Yaw

Upper Arm L&R

Pitch

Elbow L&R

Pitch, Yaw

Forearm L&R

Roll

Wrist L&R

Yaw, Pitch

Palm (gripper) L&R

6 fingers on each palm, 12 force sensors on each palm

Lower Manipulator (Third arm)

4 DOF, parallel gripper, 2 force sensors

Installation

Currently Valters' on-board sensor electronics and electromechanics are managed by custom Qt5 app which exposes TCP-IP gateways for intercommunication with ROS. This is exactly what is planned to translate entirely into native ROS interfaces (controllers).

ROSified Valter

RTAB-Map (ROS) RGBD SLAM

Valter under Moveit!

Vision sub-system overview

RGBD sensors (Kinect) overview

Capabilities overview (automated, non autonomous)

That's what, at least, I would like to implement with ROS

Development and assembling history overview

Just for fun (Valter's social activity)

Walter tells fairy tale and swings my younger son

attachment:Valter-dry-nurse.jpg

Valter - is good fellow

attachment:Valter-good-fellow-beginning.jpg

attachment:Valter-bottle-fellow-1.jpg

attachment:Valter-bottle-fellow-2.jpg

Valter in Virtual Laboratory

Wiki: Robots/Valter (last edited 2017-07-14 10:54:49 by Alexey Maistrenko)