The Booster K1 is a kid-size humanoid robot made by Booster Robotics, and is the robot NUbots currently competes with. The previous robot, the NUgus, is documented in the archive.
Unlike the NUgus, the K1 ships with its own firmware, BoosterOS, which handles low-level control, walking and getting up. Our code talks to BoosterOS through the Booster Robotics SDK. See the Motion page for how this fits together.
Overview
| Specification | Value |
|---|---|
| Height | ~95 cm |
| Weight | ~19.5 kg |
| Degrees of freedom | 22 (6 per leg, 4 per arm, 2 in the head) |
| Max. peak torque | 60 N·m |
| Joint encoders | Dual encoders |
| Battery | 5 Ah, ~80 min runtime walking at 0.4 m/s |
| Computer | NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX |
| Operating system | Ubuntu 22.04 |
| Camera | Head-mounted stereo depth camera |
| IMU | 9-axis |
| Audio | Circular 6-microphone array and a speaker |
| Networking | Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2 |
| Buttons | 1 power button and 3 interaction buttons |
The specifications are from Booster's datasheet, apart from the computer and operating system, which are those of the team's robots.
Joints
The joint limits below are from Booster's official K1 model, K1_22dof.urdf in the booster_assets repository. Limits are given for the left side; the right side's hip roll and elbow yaw ranges are mirrored.
| Joint | Range (°) | Max. effort (N·m) | Max. velocity (rad/s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Head yaw | -58 to 58 | 6 | 7.85 |
| Head pitch | -18 to 45 | 6 | 7.85 |
| Shoulder pitch | -168 to 69 | 14 | 33.51 |
| Shoulder roll | -94 to 93 | 14 | 33.51 |
| Elbow pitch | -108 to 108 | 14 | 33.51 |
| Elbow yaw | -128 to 47 | 14 | 33.51 |
| Hip pitch | -169 to 128 | 68 | 14.66 |
| Hip roll | -21 to 88 | 43 | 12.57 |
| Hip yaw | -58 to 58 | 38.3 | 17.59 |
| Knee pitch | 0 to 133 | 112 | 12.57 |
| Ankle pitch | -50 to 20 | 38.3 | 17.59 |
| Ankle roll | -20 to 20 | 38.3 | 17.59 |
Camera
The K1's head has a stereo depth camera. We only use one of its RGB streams, which BoosterOS publishes over DDS. See the Input page for details.
Computing
The K1 used by the team runs an NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX. Code for it is built with the orinnx target; see the Build System page. The Orin NX's GPU runs the YOLO vision model using TensorRT.
When connecting to the robot, the username is booster.
Buttons
Two of the interaction buttons, left and middle, are read by the Sensors module, which emits button up and down messages that behaviours can use.
