Designing limbed robots is a complex, multidisciplinary task that typically requires substantial effort from experienced engineers. In this paper, we present a novel automatic robot design framework based on Decomposition-Optimization-Assembling (DOA) to address this challenge. Our framework enables non-experts to create personalized limbed robot designs from media inputs, such as text and images, within minutes to a few hours. Our system leverages recent advances in generative AI and 3D printing to produce designs that match the descriptions provided in the input media. The output consists of selected motors and 3D-printable mechanical components that can be assembled into a limbed robot. To handle the large design space and intricate details in fabrication and assembly, we formulate and solve a series of optimization problems involving actuators, geometry, and structural density. We validate the proposed system by designing and fabricating a Centaur robot based on an image input. Furthermore, we demonstrate the system’s versatility and effectiveness through the generation of a wide variety of limbed robot designs.
Chen et al. (Tue,) studied this question.