One small four-legged step for robotics

Alum Gavin Kenneally is one of the brains behind first legged robot to move without a gearbox

March 15, 2017

By Jeremy Glass-Pilon

For those who have seen Robin Williams’ 1999 film Bicentennial Man, robots may seem like the ideal companion for anyone with expendable money. Of course, this is all just science fiction — but what if it wasn’t?

Gavin Kenneally, BEng (mech.) 12, co-founder of Ghost Robotics, has recently created a robot that can climb stairs, open doors and feel the terrain — abilities long sought after in developing robotic assistants. However, his new creation, dubbed Ghost Minitaur, is not shaped like Robin Williams but more like a 6-kilogram cat.

Ghost Robotics’ Minitaur is the first legged robot to move using direct drive. It can get around on its legs to not only navigate on all sorts of terrain but can climb fences and even open certain types of doors.

Along with Avik De, his business partner and colleague at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Kenneally worked to develop more reliable four-legged robots in order to advance research in android mobility. In fact, Ghost Minitaur is the first ever “direct drive” quadrupedal machine.

As Kenneally explains, most electric motors require a gearbox, from robots to cars. While this specific piece helps move the legs, which require much more torque — or rotational force — than conventional electric motors can create, it comes at a cost. Gearboxes are expensive, mechanically fragile and reduce the leg’s maximal speed.

What Kenneally and his team have achieved with the Ghost Minitaur is to remove the need for any gearbox at all — hence direct drive.

“We were able to develop a different way of choosing motors and a bunch of other design insights and we were able to get rid of the gearbox altogether,” he says. “Our robot is the first legged robot that doesn’t need a gearbox — the legs are directly connected to the motor.”

One major advantage, as he says, is that “because there is such a direct mechanical connection to the terrain, the legs are very responsive and can easily feel the forces they exert on the ground.”

In other words, the Ghost Minitaur can feel if it’s made contact with something, or is slipping, and can sense the world around it.

Gavin Kenneally is advancing robotics mobility by developing smaller, less human-mimicking robots that can perform similar tasks.

Kenneally is now a PhD candidate at the University of Pennsylvania, “one of the leading robotics institutions in America,” as he describes. He says that Concordia and its professors were pivotal in getting him there.

“I was always interested in robotics and I did robot competitions in high school and CEGEP,” he says. “It wasn’t until I was at Concordia that I really started doing academic research.”

During his studies in the university’s Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, he was given the opportunity to work in several engineering research labs, all the while being funded by undergraduate grants from the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council.

Along with the valuable experience he gained in these labs, he is grateful for the emphasis his teachers placed on his research interests.

“I had professors, specifically Professor [Paula] Wood-Adams and Professor [Luis] Rodriguez, who really took an interest in my enthusiasm towards research,” he says.

“They coached me in how to write papers, how to do research and how to apply for grad school. Those two outstanding professors pushed me a long way to being able to get into the program I am in now.”

News

One small four-legged step for robotics

#CUalumni

One small four-legged step for robotics

#CUalumni

Related topics