open Dog – the Open Source Robot

This page is mostly about the initial design process for openDog. This is an open source robot licensed under GPL3, you can find CAD and code on my Github which will be updated throughout the build series. There are some videos about this, or scroll down for some pictures and words:

The CAD is drawn in Fusion360 which allows me to construct joints and linkages and measure the CAD to check dimensions.

This robot with have a kinematic model so I can place the feet in any XYZ space and the joint positions will be calculated in real time.

I’m using ODrive Robotics motor drivers with brushless motors for this project. The motors are 149KV 6374 motors which are the same as the ExoSuit.

In part 2 I planned the detailed mechanics for one knee joint

I built the actual joints and tested it with the Odrive which you can see in the second video above:

The next thing to prototype is the actuator that moves the hips side-to-side. This is also using a ball screw but needs to be far more compact:

I’m using smooth bar and linear bearings to make it move in and outwards as the ball screw turns:

This seems to fit in fine and allow +/- 15 degrees of movement at the hip – check out video #3 above.