Accelerating the Future of Robotics: HEBI Robotics

There are certainly many companies out there in the market today. But these companies will not have all the experts under one roof, But HEBI Robotics does. With a team of Ph.D. researchers, engineers, and technicians HEBI is certainly standing out in the market. It has experience developing robotics tools for the military, sewer inspection, space flight, and the aerospace industry. Its expertise includes robotics, hardware, and software, with a core focus on motion control.

HEBI Robotics was founded in 2014 by a cross-disciplinary team from the world-renowned Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. The company is a spin-out of CMU's Biorobotics Lab, led by Professor Howie Choset. In 2016, HEBI released its X-Series platform of modular hardware and software tools, now used by dozens of global universities, researchers, and industrial partners to create custom, world-class robots quickly and easily.

The Hardware

X-Series Actuators^®

HEBI Robotics' X-Series Actuators^® allow engineers, researchers, and industrial integrators to quickly and easily create custom, world-class robots of any configuration. These actuators are packed with sensors that enable simultaneous control of position, velocity, and torque as well as three-axis inertial measurement.

Each module is a series-elastic actuator that integrates a brushless motor, geartrain, spring, encoders, and control electronics into a compact package that runs on anything from 18V to 48V DC and communicates using standard 10/100Mbps Ethernet.

The X-Series Actuator^® is designed to function as a full-featured robotic component as opposed to a simple servo motor. The output rotates continuously, requires no calibration or homing on boot-up, and contains a thru-bore for easy daisy-chaining and wiring. The modules can be used in everything from wheeled robots to multi-degree-of-freedom, collaborative robotic arms.

Robotic Kits

In addition to individual actuators, HEBI Robotics designs robotic system kits. These kits can be configured to customer specifications. All kits include actuators, connecting accessories, electrical wiring, and power supply, assembly instructions, and example code.

If you don't see a kit below that fits your application, the firm still loves to hear from its customers. Its library of robotic components and kits is constantly evolving based on end-user feedback.

In addition to the X-Series Actuator^®, HEBI Robotics offers all of the accessories that you need to build and configure your robot—connecting pieces, wiring, and more. X-SERIES GRIPPER and HEBI I/O BOARD are two examples.

The Apps Offered by the Company

HEBI's desktop and mobile applications provide additional features and capabilities to HEBI hardware components.

Current desktop apps:

Scope allows users to configure, command, and update HEBI modules on your network, and can be used to plot real-time feedback.

Current mobile apps:

HEBI Mobile I/O allows mobile devices to provide input to HEBI APIs, and supply real-time sensor data. Scope is a multi-purpose monitoring and configuration utility that identifies HEBI modules on the local network. It is a cross-platform application for Windows, Linux, and macOS. It lets you to easily get up and running by helping you do things like:

• Plot real-time feedback
• Send actuator commands
• Configure and tune controllers
• Update firmware

APIs

HEBI Robotics offers APIs for various programming languages as well as logging tools, allowing system developers to control HEBI components using the environment they are most comfortable with and that best suits the project.

HEBI's APIs provide different levels of access to the hardware, covering a wide range of research projects and applications. Kinematics and trajectory APIs provide high-level control, similar to that of today's industrial robots. Joint-level control APIs allow complete control of each actuator's motion and tight integration of feedback from multiple actuators and external sensors.

A rich set of logging tools ensures that data can be recorded with virtually no overhead and easily analyzed and visualized.

The Change the Company Brings

Robotics are impacting new areas and applications where traditional robots were historically either poorly equipped or too complex for the need. HEBI robotics is passionate about expanding the capabilities of robotics and creating systems that have an impact in real-world environments. By providing services like custom system design and development it is surely. It also develops robotic solutions to address its customers' unique applications. Further, it works with industry partners over time to advise on and further develop systems that efficiently and safely integrate robotics. It has the expertise to take your system from prototype to scalable production. The company makes sure its products are effective to solve simple problems with simple robots. Also, it is collaborative so that robots can quickly and safely deploy alongside workers. The products are built around open and well-supported standards like Ethernet communications and ROS. Products are customizable because the company’s approach is to build the robot to suit the application, rather than changing to application to suit the robot.

The Professor of Robotics

Howie Choset, Founder and CEO:

He is a professor of Robotics directing a research and education program that stresses scientific fundamentals and engineering realities. His work has been translated into medicine, aerospace manufacturing, and auto-body painting.

“Education makes rigorous fundamentals in computer science and applied math accessible to engineering students,” he says.

Howie’s Specialties: snake robots, medical robots, aerospace manufacturing, path planning, motion control, estimation, localization and mapping, home automation, robotic archaeology, grant writing, academic paper writing, patent review.

“HEBI Robotics produces hardware and software tools that make it easy to create custom robots quickly. Our platform is used by academic and industrial roboticists around the world to speed up development, iterate quickly, and solve real-world problems with robots.”