Thunderbolt, mini humanoid robot, Yoshihiro Shibata, Japan

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Designer - Yoshihiro Shibata

 

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Robot Pro-Wrestling Dekinnoka!17 -Thunderbolt VS Ryuketsu-Kamen-

Published on Jul 5, 2014

Maker Faire Kansan City at Historic Union Station (June 28-29 2014)

 

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Robot Pro-Wrestling Dekinnoka!23 -Thunderbolt VS Ryuketsu-Kamen-

Published on Apr 11, 2015

ROBOGAMES 2015 at San Mateo Event Center (April 3-5 2015)

 

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Yoshihiro Shibata - Thunderbolt Robot Gripper Design

Published on Apr 25, 2015

Yoshihiro Shibata first designed the Thunderbolt humanoid robot almost eight years, but it still represents some of the leading edge technology in terms of design and performance, especially its passive walking motions.

One of Shibata’s key design goals was for Thunderbolt to be able to interact with the audience, to give them High-Fives, pickup and throw a ball, play soccer, and even to jump rope.

To do that he needed to incorporate a fully functional gripper for both hands. It had to be low weight and have at least three active fingers. Shibata was able to accomplish the task using only one servo dedicated to the gripper itself.

As you can see from the video, two of the fingers are geared together so they move simultaneously, while the third finger, positioned orthogonally from the first two, moves in sync. All three fingers are driven by a custom linkage designed by Shibata.

In the end, he succeeded in achieving and exceeding all of the original design goals. Thunderbolt is capable of jumping rope (one of the challenge goals for the robots first ROBO-ONE competition), acting as the team leader for his robot soccer team not to mention scoring numerous goals, playing with kids of all ages, and delighting audiences all over the world.

 

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Yoshihiro Shibata - Thunderbolt Robot Hip/Leg Design For Effective Walking Gait

Published on Apr 26, 2015

Most humanoid designers try to model their robot’s body on the human example. It’s a good place to start, but they quickly run into limitations because the number of joints they can incorporate into their designs is typically just a small fraction of the degrees of freedom available to us humans. Our bodies have well over 100 degrees of freedom, even if we don’t tend to put them to good use. The average humanoid robot has about 20 to 25 degrees of freedom in total, and usually 5 or so per leg.

Over the decade+ that the ROBO-ONE initiative has been active, designers split into two camps. One type of competitor modified their designs to build robots that excel in the ring, in combat, even though the overall robot form strayed quite a bit from what we would normally classify as human-like.

In contrast, the other type of competitor tried, as much as possible, to remain true to human-like body structure and motions. One of the most well-known and respected leaders in that group was Yoshimura, who gained a lot fame in the robot community by being the lead designer for the original Kondo KHR-1.

Yoshimura’s hip and leg designs provided for considerable flexibility over more mainstream robots. One of Yoshimura’s followers,

Yoshihiro Shibata, picked up on the advantages of the design and kept refining and improving it year by year. All of Shibata’s humanoid robot designs have incorporated aspects of that innovative hip/leg design, even though some of them came to market with more limited degrees of freedom. The Kyosho MANOI AT-01 is a good example, since the additional hip degrees of freedom were offered as an optional upgrade kit.

The most striking example of Shibata’s work, at least at the moment, is his Thunderbolt competition robot. Thunderbolt features 23 degrees of freedom, plays soccer, competes in ROBO-ONE and Robot Pro Wrestling events, and can even jump rope.

Thunderbolt’s walking style is strikingly realistic. He immediately attracts attention as he struts with attitude across the floor.

Amazingly enough, Thunderbolt can actually walk with a gait that places one foot almost directly in front of the other, just like a human does.

What’s next? We’ll have to wait and see how Shibata improves and evolves Thunderbolt. Version 2.0 will be awesome, no doubt. We can hardly wait!

 

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Thunderbolt robot unique walking gait

Published on Apr 28, 2015

Yoshihiro Shibata’s Thunderbolt humanoid robot is in a class almost by itself. The robots hip/leg design was based on an original concept developed by Koichi Yoshimura, one of the early ROBO-ONE champions, but has been refined extensively over the years by Shibata.

Shibata applies his own unique take on the ‘scientific method’ carefully considering each aspect of the robots walking gait. Small, incremental changes are made, and the results are evaluated to see if they bring him closer to the goal, or further away.

Unlike many ROBO-ONE humanoid builders who focus on designing a robot that will win the competition even if that makes them less humanoid, Shibata goes out of his way to imbue Thunderbolt with a walking gait that is as human-like as possible.

The result is a robot that can not only walk, but one that actually walks, and struts, with style and swagger. This gives Thunderbolt real personality and feeling, a cute personality that immediately bonds with the audience. Shibata loves seeing the smiles and laughs that immediately blossom on children and adults faces when they see Thunderbolt perform.

Designed to incorporate 23 degrees of freedom, Thunderbolt’s hip/leg structure enables it to rotate each leg at the hip independently allowing it to put one foot in front of the other. This flexibility is critical in achieving some of the world-class walking gaits developed by Shibata.

And, Thunderbolt can do much more than just walking. He plays robot soccer, gives energetic High-Five’s, running robot endurance marathons, jumps rope, wins at Extreme Mech Warfare equipped with real rockets, and often competes in Robot Pro Wrestling.

 

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Huro Cup2015 - Long Jump Reference #1

Published on May 17, 2015

Huro Cup2015 - Long Jump Reference #2

Published on May 17, 2015