DARwIn-OP


DARwIn-OP is a miniature-humanoid robot platform developed and manufactured by Korean robot manufacturer Robotis in collaboration with Virginia Tech, Purdue University, and University of Pennsylvania. It is also supported by a $1.2 million NSF grant. DARwIn-OP has twenty degrees of freedom, each controlled by a DYNAMIXEL MX-28T servo motor.
DARwIn-OP's main purpose is for research and programmers in the fields of humanoid, artificial intelligence, gait algorithm, vision, inverse kinematics, and linguistics, among others.
DARwIn-OP is also the winner of the Kid Size League in the RoboCup 2011 2012 League, and 2013 League. With the release of the ROBOTIS OP2, the name of DARwIn-OP has also changed.

Specifications

DARwIn-OP

A 3D visualization of the robot is available here.

ROBOTIS OP3

Many source codes are being shared and are open. *

Competitions

This platform is currently used in the ICRA, RoboCup, FIRA, and Humabot competition.
Links below.
Beginning in 2012 ROBOTIS and IEEE ICRA has sponsored the DARWIN-OP Humanoid Application Challenge, held at the ICRA conference. The competition encourages participants to solve novel problems using DARWIN-OP and present their findings at the conference. Winners are selected by a panel of experts as well as popular vote amongst the participants. The winning team has been awarded the DARWIN-OP Deluxe Edition for two consecutive years along with software. All finalists are also rewarded. As of 2015, the challenge name has changed to Humanoid Application Challenge and is now open to all applications.
YearWinning TeamProject DescriptionCompetition Location
2012University of ManitobaIce skating/Ice hockeyMinneapolis-St Paul
2013Georgia TechCase-based reasoning, learning from demonstrationKarlsruhe, Germany
2014CancelledCancelledHong Kong
2015University of ManitobaAlpine and cross-country skiingSeattle, WA - USA
2016CancelledCancelledStockholm, Sweden

RoboCup

The DARWIN-OP robot is currently used by several teams in the RoboCup kids-size competition and have shown excellent performance by the teams using this platform.
YearRankTeam NameCountryUniversity
20111st PlaceTeam DARwInUSAVirginia Tech and UPenn
20121st PlaceTeam DARwInUSAVirginia Tech and UPenn
20131st PlaceTeam DARwInUSAVirginia Tech and UPenn
20142nd PlaceBold HeartsUKUniversity of Hertfordshire

FIRA

DARWIN-OP robots are used by some teams in the kids-size HuroCup competition at FIRA. A team from the University of Manitoba won best overall at the 2013 competition using a DARwIn-OP. By 2017, team ICHIRO from Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember won 10 medals and broke two world records in sprint and marathon using Darwin-Op.

Robotbenchmark

Since August 2017, the ROBOTIS OP2 is used in an online contest called Humanoid Marathon on robotbenchmark. In this contest it is possible to program a simulated robot in Python using a web interface.

Community

Due to its openness and easy maintenance, many researchers favor and hope to create a clone version of their own.
DARWIN-OP is currently being used at the labs/universities below :