Offering Robot Solutions, from Robot Parts to Educational Robot Kits and Humanoid robots

Established in 1999, ROBOTIS was founded as a way to answer the philosophical question of 'what a robot is...'

The company’s main business evolves around educational robot kits aimed towards infants all the way to professionals; all-in-one acutator modules, DYNAMIXEL; and robot components.

The educational robot kit line-up includes the OLLO for infants; to the DREAM and SMART series and MINI for primary kids; and PREMIUM, STEM, GP FOR middle and high school students; and the ROBOTIS OP, MANIPULATOR, THORMANG, AND TurtleBot for professionals.

▲ROBOTIS’ Educational Robot Kit, OLLOBOT PLAY 700

Every year during the holiday season, IEEE Spectrum Magazine, the flagship publication of the world’s largest professional organization devoted to engineering and the applied sciences, release their “Robot Gift Guide.” Last year, ROBOTIS’ Educational Robot Kit, OLLOBOT PLAY 700 was included in their Robot Gift Guide 2016, attesting to its popularity. Children assemble their kits using the plastic parts and rivets that come with the kit. Moreover, by making improvements to the controller, the company has made it possible for children to modify the program. Children aged 8 and over can make a range of objects, including windmills, scorpions, and racing cars that can be controlled by using the smartphone app.

▲ ROBOTIS DARWIN-MINI

The ROBOTIS Mini is a bipedal humanoid robot composed of a circuit diagram and an open-sourced embedded controller as well as a semi-permanent lithium ion battery and a small actuator.

▲ Robotis OP & OP2(Photo left)

The ROBOTIS OP2 is a miniature-humanoid-robot platform with advanced computational power, sophisticated sensors and high payload capacity. Despite its affordability, its dynamic motion ability gives it the ability to perform a wide range of movements such as research, education, and outreach activities.

▲ THORMANG

The company’s THORMANG model attracted a great deal of world-wide attention when it was used by 3 of the Korean teams and by 5 other teams including the Americans and Germans at the 2015 DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC), which took place in the United Sates. Standing at 1.6m and weighing 60kg, THORMANG is a large bipedal humanoid robot.

▲ DYNAMIXEL X-Series

In 2012, ROBOTIS announced their modular robot actuator DYNAMIXEL 1.0 as being selected “World Class Product of Korea” by the Korean government. In 2014, the company released DYNAMIXEL Pro which features a Cycloid type reduction gear; in 2016, they released the DYNAMIXEL 2.0 (X series) to reflect the needs of their customers. Even with its compact design, this product is able to implement multiple applications and boasts improved cable and heat dissipation performance. It attracted a great deal of attention from the global robot market.
In the DYNAMIXEL X, the case that holds the motor and the reduction gear is produced using aluminum, which enhances heat dissipation performance and driving efficiency, thereby extending the product’s lifespan. Despite more than 31% decrease in volume compared to the existing products, output has actually increased. Compared to the previous model, the exterior design was simplified and the design of the structures that that are connected to the actuator have also been redesigned to be simpler. One of the biggest changes involve direct screw assembly to the aluminum case, without the nut insert. The company is currently exporting products that contain DYNAMIXEL – the smart actuator for robots, to more than 40 countries in the US, China, Japan, and Europe.

▲ TURTLEBOT3

TurtleBot is a low cost personal robot kit. First developed by Willow Garage in 2010, TurtleBot3 was released by ROBOTIS in May of this year. Recently TurtleBot was selected by the global media site, Robotics Trend.com as one of the top ten robot products based on the open-sourced operation system, Robot Operating System (ROS). Today, this product is used more than any other product by robotics scientists around the world as a mobile robot platform that implements various robot functions. TurtleBot 3 boasts three features: compact size, extensibility, and open source hardware. It has been reduced in size for greater portability with the adoption of the new Dynamixel X series.

Through OpenCR, the ARM Cortex-M7 in the TurtleBot 3 controls the actuator DYNAMIXEL and sensor. In the standard model TurtleBot3 Burger, the product has been configured to perform indoor mapping and navigation using Raspberry Pi and 360° distance measuring LiDAR. 3D mapping using Intel® Joule™ Board and Intel® RealSense™ is available in the advanced model TurtleBot3 Waffle.

In a time when all industries are applying robot technologies to their businesses – that is, “robotization” – ROBOTIS is squarely placed to meet these needs. By providing modularized and standardized robot technology solutions, this promising company is contributing to the sharing and diffusion of technology.