UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO - NOTICE OF INTENT TO AWARD A SINGLE SOURCE CONTRACT: 19-072
REEM-C Humanoid Robot
The University of Waterloo (UW) is investigating the award of a single source contract to PAL Robotics S.L. of Barcelona, Spain, for the purchase of a customized humanoid robot. The budget for this entire package is approximately $600,000.00 CAD, not including tax/HST.
This is an Advanced Notice indicating to the supplier community that UW may award a contract for this equipment to a pre-identified supplier. If no other supplier submits, on or before the closing date of this notice, a statement of specifications that satisfies the stated requirements set out in this Notice, the competitive requirements of the University are considered to have been met. Following notification to any suppliers not successful in demonstrating that their statement of specifications meets the requirements set out in this Notice, the contract may then be awarded to the pre-identified supplier.
If other potential suppliers submit statements of specifications during the twenty five day calendar day posting period, and meet the requirements set out in this Notice, UW will proceed to a Request for Proposal process, in order to award the contract.
Process - Suppliers who can provide equivalent equipment with proven functionality required for the research, within budget, are encouraged to submit a statement of specifications, in writing, to the contact person identified in this Notice on or before the closing date of this Notice. The statement of specifications must unequivocally demonstrate how the supplier meets these advertised requirements within budget.
SPECIFICATIONS –
The REEM-C humanoid robot package consists of the robot, the basic software suite, premium software options, acessories and customer service package as follows (‘DoF’ = degrees of freedom):
Humanoid robot:
- 2 x 6 DoF1 x 2 legs
- 2 DoF torso
- 2 x 7 DoF x 2 arms
- 2 DoF head
- 2 x 19 DoF hands (3 actuators)
- 2 x 6 axis F/T sensors (wrists)
- 2 x 6-axis F/T sensor (in the ankles)
- 2 x Laser URG-04LX-UG01 5.6m,0.36°, 10Hz (feet)
- Inertial Measurement Unit AHRS ±450 °/s, ±20g, ±8G
- 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac 5 GHz
- 2 x Computers with CPU Intel i7
- 2 x Speakers 5W
- Intel Realsense D435i camera on the head
- Nvidia Jetson TX2 Accessory
Basestation that provides secure network, logs activity and enables remote robot diagnostics
and updates:
- Battery and charger
- Joystick teleoperation
- Wireless access point and switch
The Basic Software Suite consists of:
- Ubuntu LTS 64-bits
- ROS LTS
- RT Preempt real-time framework
- Orocos
- Detailed kinematic and dynamic robot model (URDF)
- ros_control and ros_controllers
- Gazebo dynamic simulation
- Joystick teleoperation
- Rviz visualization for robot model and sensors in real-time
- Web-based control and diagnosis interface
- Motion planning with Moveit!
- Upper-body motion library:
- Over 20 pre-programmed upper body motions
- Self-collision prevention software
- Position Based Dynamic Walking and Stabilizer library (only binary):
- ros_control plugin for walking trajectories generation and tracking for flat ground
- stabilizer module to compensate for perturbations and small terrain unevenness
- Text-to-speech Software license with one language and one voice
- USB flash drives with installation software for REEM-C, Basestation and Development computer
- Unlimited Development licenses seats
The Basic Customer Service includes:
- 3 days training for 2 people at manufacturer’s premises
- Setup and installation on site at uWaterloo
- Robot maintenance program (for next year after the purchase):
- Online Technical Assistance 2 up to 30 hours
- Periodic software updates3
- Remote Diagnostics4
- Bug-fixing
Premium Software options:
- Whole Body Control (hierarchical quadratic solver) providing:
- On-line inverse kinematics of the legs, waist, arms, torso, head and hands
- Self-collision and Joint Limit avoidance
- Humanoid Autonomous Navigation (requires lasers in the feet optional):
- Laser-based mapping and self-localization
- Foot steps planning and execution with obstacle avoidance
- Navigation to a map point
- Human face perception:
- Face detection and matching
- 6 basic emotions recognition
- Facial features recognition: glasses, smile, open mouth, blinking
- Text-to-speech: extra languages and voices
Accessories :
- Spare REEM-C battery
- Spare REEM-C charger
- Workstation computer preloaded with Ubuntu, ROS and REEM-C IDE
- Tethered remote emergency button
Warranty and Maintenance plan
- Yearly Maintenance SLA Agreement plan for 3 years
- Extended warranty for 3 years
The above package includes a premium (custom-fit) transportation crate.
SOLE SOURCE JUSTIFICATION
In March, 2018, the University of Waterloo advertised a Request for Proposals (RFP #18-014) for a larger humanoid robot, and received only one proposal, from PAL Robotics in Spain. The University purchased the TALOS robot from PAL Robotics in 2018, which was showcased in our RoboHub during the grand opening of the Engineering 7 building. The University wishes to add a second humanoid robot to our fleet, with similar capabilities as the TALOS, in order to conduct research between the two robots.
It is optimum that the robots can operate using the same software platform, and have interchangeable functionality that allows operation in tandem (or, to perform the same function with changing parameters). In addition, the University of Waterloo has a new faculty member joining the research team, who has previously conducted research using the REEM-C from PAL Robotics; those research results will then be directly transferable to the same equipment on premise here at University of Waterloo.
For this research, the availability of precise and reliable models of the mechanics and control systems (for the use in model-based simulation, optimization and control) is crucial. In addition to the robot-robot interaction tasks mentioned above, the new robot will also be used in human-robot interactions for interdisciplinary studies. It is important that the new robot has complementary skills to the TALOS with less strong actuators and reliable position control to allow safe interactions.
Not only is the University unaware of any other supplier/manufacturer that can provide this equipment with the same functionality, as per the previous RFP, the standardization opportunity between the TALOS and the REEM-C offer a unique advantage to the research program at the RoboHub.
Date of issue: July 11, 2019
Closing Date: August 6, 2019 at 2:30 p.m. EST
Contact:
Christine Wagner, CPPB, CSCP – Research Coordinator and Senior Buyer
Procurement and Contract Services
University of Waterloo
Ph: 519-888-4567 ext. 32074
Email – cpwagner@uwaterloo.ca, or, procure@uwaterloo.ca
