The Design and Manufacturing of Mithra: A Humanoid Robot with Anthropomorphic Attributes and High-Performance Actuators

While the concept of humanoid robots stems from the goal of replicating human movement, these systems have yet to match the elegance and efficiency of human locomotion. A key reason for this gap is that current humanoid robots differ from humans in their kinematics, dynamics, and actuator properties. This work seeks to close that gap by designing an optimized humanoid robot with characteristics closely resembling those of an average human. For this purpose, we built a detailed framework for the in-depth electromechanical modeling of actuator components. This model was used in the comprehensive optimization of the robot’s actuator system, which was designed as a multi-objective scheme based on the objectives introduced in our previous work. This process helped both in achieving efficient and high-performance actuators and in streamlining the design of the structural parts to have mass and inertia distributions similar to those of humans. The proposed design process was utilized in the design of our humanoid robot, Mithra. Initial test showed that Mithra achieved its design goals in terms of human-like kinematics and dynamics characteristics, together with sufficient actuator strength for tasks such as stair navigation, squatting, and running.