Versatile modular electronics for rapid design and development of humanoid robotic subsystems

The development of humanoid robots is a highly complex process. Consisting of numerous subsystems which need to be combined for actuation such as electric motors or hydraulic valves, as well as sophisticated sensors and sensing units like skin. In this paper, we introduce our strategy to simplify the development of these complex electrical systems by using modular components. We took a generalised approach in the realisation of our design. By utilising a standard module based around a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) it will be shown that our design is effective in terms of flexibility as well as scalability while at the same time ensuring compatibility over multiple generations and types of humanoid robotic systems. In this paper, we will present a few examples of humanoid subsystems showing the benefits of this approach.