Open-source robot

"A robot is an autonomous machine capable of sensing its environment, carrying out computations to make decisions, and performing actions in the real world."<ref> IEEE. "What Is a Robot?" </ref>

A robot is "any automatically operated machine that replaces human effort, though it may not resemble human beings in appearance or perform functions in a humanlike manner."<ref> "Britannica: Robot". </ref>

Here at Open Circuits, we are most interested in open-source robotics. In particular, we are most interested in open designs for motor drivers and controller boards and all the other electronics that goes into a robot. We also find interesting open designs for rocker-bogie and other wheeled robot suspension arrangements, open designs for robot legs and arms and grippers, and open-source software intended to run on robot hardware as well as intended to be used to design improved robot hardware and electronics.

Complete robots already mentioned on Open Circuits

• Odroid XU4 Weeding Spraying Robot
• Vehicles such as quadcopters and other Multi-rotor flying machines often technically qualify as a robot.

Robot components already mentioned on Open Circuits

Motors, batteries, and the stuff between them:

• Servo control
• Motor driver
• Arduino Motor Workshop
• Instructables Stepper Links
• Battery

Sensors:

• Piezoelectric transducer often used for robot sonar.

Robot brains:

• Motherboards that run Linux are useful for robots that do any sort of visual processing or WiFi networking.
• Microcontrollers are useful for robots that balance or need any other sort of quick reflexes.
• Some robots use both.

possibly related pages

• Arduino Links mentions a few robots
• 3D Printed Mechanisms
• Tulsa electronics club mentions robotics clubs
• Kalman filter is used in highly dynamic robotic systems, such as balancing walking robots and multi-rotor helicopters

Robot ethics

It seems obvious to most people that we should stop killer robots, and pre-emptively ban building killer robots in the first place:

• https://www.StopKillerRobots.org/
• https://futureoflife.org/ai/killer-robots-worlds-top-ai-robotics-companies-urge-united-nations-ban-lethal-autonomous-weapons/
• https://www.amnesty.org/en/petition/stop-killer-robots/
• "Thousands of leading AI researchers sign pledge against killer robots" https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/jul/18/thousands-of-scientists-pledge-not-to-help-build-killer-ai-robots
• https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2016-09/features/stopping-killer-robots-why-now-time-ban-autonomous-weapons-systems
• https://www.zdnet.com/article/representatives-from-150-tech-companies-sign-pledge-against-killer-robots/
• https://www.npr.org/2018/07/18/630146884/ai-innovators-take-pledge-against-autonomous-killer-weapons

Some people are pointing out less obvious problems:

• Some human-in-the-loop systems pretend that the human will prevent errors, but it seems likely that the human is merely there to have someone to blame when errors inevitably occur: https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/18/asbestos-in-the-walls/

• Many more-or-less fully autonomous systems are effectively "opaque", making it impossible for humans to even guess exactly how they might go wrong ahead of time: https://www.radicalai.org/killer-robots https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/campaigns/sign-the-petition-and-support-mozillas-call-for-trustworthy-ai/

Categories of robots

One way of categorizing robots is "How long can it pause and think?". Some kinds of robots can stop and think at any time for more-or-less unlimited amounts of time, while others have hard real-time constraints (see RTOS) with a very short window of time to think before it needs to respond to prevent tipping over.

Ordered by decreasing response time, such robots are:

• bolted-down arms
• wheeled robots on a fixed rail (need to stop before it hits the end of the rail)
• slow-moving wheeled robots on flat surfaces (need to stop before it falls down the stairs; also stop when it hits a wall)
• fast-moving wheeled robots on flat surfaces
• wheeled robots on irregular terrain
• Whegs ("wheeled legs") on irregular terrain<ref>

"Robotics at CWRU: Whegs". </ref><ref> "Hackaday articles tagged: whegs" </ref><ref> "Whegs (Wheel-Legs)". </ref>

• legged walkers with 6 or more legs<ref>

"The ABC's of Walkers, Big and Small". </ref>

• inverse pendulum
• legged walkers with 3 or fewer legs; wheeled robots with 2 or fewer wheels; require "dynamic stability" to stay upright
• A quadcopter or other multi-rotor helicopter often has gyro stabilization to respond to tipping faster than humanly possible.

External links

• Electrical Engineering & Robotics Professor Dr. Carlotta A. Berry often discusses Open Source Hardware for robots in her blog https://www.noiresteminist.com/ and "Robotics for the Streets" videos https://www.youtube.com/@carlottaberry/videos
• A list of open-source, affordable, less-known, or visionary robotics projects: https://github.com/mjyc/awesome-robotics-projects
• Nybble, a palm-size Open Source Robotic Cat https://www.petoi.com/pages/nybble-cutest-bionic-robot-cat
• Bittle, a palm-size Open Source Robot Dog https://www.petoi.com/pages/bittle-open-source-bionic-robot-dog ( https://www.the-diy-life.com/meet-bittle-an-advanced-open-source-robot-dog-by-petoi/ )
• "9 open source robotics projects" https://opensource.com/life/16/4/open-source-robotics-projects
• "Open Source Stories" mentions several robots and other open-source hardware: https://www.redhat.com/en/open-source-stories