Hardware
I-Zak appears as a cylinder with 47 centimeters of diameter, and 1.30 meters high and weighs about 25 kilograms, built upon an Arlo Robot Base. We also use acrylic parts, carbon fiber bars, WidowX robot arm, linear actuator and 3D printed parts. The Arlo Robot Base is responsible for the robot movement and is composed of 2 mabuchi motors with pneumatic rubber tires of 76 mm of diameter. The carbon fiber bars are used to support columns that are fixed on the Arlo Robot Base with special designed 3D parts. In the middle of the I-Zak, we use acrylic which was cut by a laser cutter in a circular shape, with 47cm diameter connected to the Arlo base with 3D printed parts, designed on 3D CAD software, and carbon fiber bars.
The robot head is made from a cone lampshade cut in half. Inside the lampshade is placed a gimbal to support the tablet with the robot face, and on top there is a 3D designed part to the Microsoft Kinect and microphone. The tablet simulates the face of I-zak and the Gimbal is the neck, responsible for lateral movement of the tablet.
Software
For gripping and manipulation, is used a WidowX Robot Arm Mark II, manufactured by Trossen Robotics. It has 5 degrees of freedom (DOF) and a horizontal reach of 41 cm fully extended, holding up to 400 g for a vertical grip orientation and 29 cm reach. It has a boxed ABS frame, two Dynamixel MX64 servos for shoulder movement and rotation, two Dynamixel MX28 servos for elbow and wrist movement, and two Dynamixel AX12 servos for wrist rotation and parallel gripping, opening up to 32 mm, all controlled by an ArbotiX-M Robocontroller. A new grip is in development using AX18 Dynamixel servos which can open up to 55 mm.
The system architecture consists of three layers: the first, written in C++, runs on MS Windows and is called VOXAR Brain. This part of the robot system processes most of the visual and depth data that comes from the Kinect Camera on the top of the robot and its depth sensor. Based on this information, the VOXAR Brain sends data to the second level of the system, packets that contain data for the robot activities.