Fauna Robotics launches Sprout humanoid robot for research and development
The humanoid robot Sprout is marketed as a development platform for universities, schools, and developers. It is also intended to help in the household.
Robot Sprout is very agile.
(Image: Fauna Robotics)
The US-based robotics company Fauna Robotics has developed the Sprout humanoid robot platform, which can be used as a basis for research and development. However, the robot's focus is not on industrial work, but rather on applications in the household, social interaction, and leisure activities.
Sprout is 107 cm tall and weighs only 22.7 kg. Due to its relatively low weight, it can also be carried from one place to another. However, this is not necessary, as the humanoid robot can walk and climb stairs out-of-the-box.
In total, Sprout has 29 degrees of freedom: 5 each on the legs and feet, and 6 each on the 48 cm long arms. The hands are designed as 3-finger grippers. Additionally, it can rotate and tilt its head and upper body. Two movable, antenna-shaped eyebrows give the robot an individual touch.
The body, made of aluminum and composite materials, is completely covered with a soft, rubber-like material. If physical contact with a human occurs despite the integrated safety measures, it should be less painful.
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Sprout is said to be able to lift weights up to 11.2 kg, but only for a short time, less than 10 seconds, and only in a specific arm position. Handling objects up to around one kilogram should be possible permanently. Fauna Robotics provides no information about the actuators used.
The brain of the robot control is the CPU Nvidia Jetson AGX Orin 64 GB. A 1 TByte NVMe SSD serves as storage. Sprout is equipped with a ZED 2i RGB-D stereo camera, 4 VL53L8CX-8Ă—8 distance sensors, a 9-axis IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit), and a microphone array for acoustic room sensing.
Programming and Training
A connection to the robot can be established via Wi-Fi 5.2 or Ethernet. While the robot operates autonomously, it can also be remotely controlled and trained via the data connection. Fauna Robotics provides an SDK for the development of robot applications. Programming is done in Python and via C++ APIs. The visualization and management tool Foxglove for robots helps with visualization. The robot architecture is compatible with Nvidia Isaac Sim, Gazebo, and MuJoCo for performing simulations and training the robot.
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Sprout is powered by a lithium-ion battery with 5000 mAh or 10,000 mAh. With the stronger battery variant, the robot's runtime is between 3 and 3.5 hours.
Fauna Robotics sees the robot as a development platform and for use in households. However, due to its physical limitations, it is not suitable as a platform for developing industrial applications. Instead, Sprout is intended to be used as a social robot and for light tasks at home. However, the price of Sprout is likely to be too high for average households: it is around 50,000 US dollars.
(olb)
