[Unitree Go1] Self Charging

Sensors
1

Hello @Sohail,

I recently came across Go2 and it had an interesting feature of self charging from the dock port as soon as battery is low and with the help of camera I believe it is detecting the docking station. However, we are currently having Go1 robot and later we want to use it continuously without turning it off, for that we also need something like Go2. So, is it possible to convert the manual charging system of Go1 to self charging system using docking station as Go2?

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Dear @Ravin,

We tried to do this at some point, however, the Go1 electrical system doesn’t allow for easy charging of the battery without changing the internal components.

As for the Go2 it can reach the docking and charge but currently to my knowledge the autonomous functionality is being worked on by Unitree. However, with ROS2 you can use the nav2 docking station package to achieve this anyways. The main issue would have been the charging unit but that is available with Go2.

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Hi, Unitree does not support a charging station for the Go1 but you got on the belly an XT30 with data pins. I am currently working out how to create a charging station without any modifications inside the bot. As fas as I can see with my Go1 Pro it is per software and some 433MHz sender possible to set the bot into charging mode and also observe the SOC to cut the line and also turn the bot off at the end the charging process.
Unfortunately I did not find out how to start the bot without pressing the accu button.

Regarding Go2, as far as I know support for the docking station depends on your model. I think only the edu version is supported.

maggus

1 Like
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Ok, so self charging option is something we have to kind off activate my ourselves in Go2, but it is possible as in edu version we do get docking station. With Go1, we can not do self charging as it does not support it currently.

5

Hey @maggus,

Thank you for in insights, however we are planning to just keep the robot dog on, we don’t want to shut it down, like if its fully charged then also we don’t want to turn it down. Also, I will check my Go1 and try to find the pins if they are available or not for my version.

Ravin

6

ok, I see. May I give you a hint:

you won’t get success in setting the battery into charging mode if you use an external power supply.
Just use the Unitree Power Supply. If you connect the swtched off bot to the Unitree Power Supply by either the belly or the backside XT30 you will see the battery going into charging state.
But: as soon as the bot stands up, the current consumption rises up to 5 Amps. The Unitree charger is not capable of supporting this current.
So you have to prevent the bot from standing up.
One way is to to manipulate the startup-sequenz in
/pi/Unitree/autostart/.autostartlist.sh
If you prevent triggersportmode from starting also the bot will not stand up.
Disadvantage: you will not get any Battery State Messages via mqtt (SOC), so you don’t know the charging status. Maybe you find some other sequence?

Another way is to immediately turn down locomotion with the emergency controller after boot start. If you hear the fans starting after boot, you shall immedialtey turn off the bot via the remote. The charging procedure will continue. I understand you will continuosly run the bot but at the moment I do not see any other way to switch into charging mode than to power down the bot.
I do this by sit down the bot and connecting to the charger (with special pins like e.g. a suction bot does). Then I turn on the charger and immediatly turn it off. This turns off the bot. Afterwards I start the described charging sequence.

Nevertheless, at the end you have to restart the bot in some way.

If you take a look into the Robodog Slack forum, there is a guy called LASCA which is also working on a docking station but he goes the way of modifying the hardware. He is not very active at the moment so you have to give him a pm.

maggus

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Hey @maggus

However, to do what you said, we need to build our own docking station for as Go1 is not having one right?

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Yes, correct that is!

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And here is maybe another useful hint for you. As you mentioned to study at the Hochschule Anhalt, I would like to give you a contact to Mark Mints from University Koblenz.
They have several unitree and boston dynamic bots.

Maybe Anhalt and Koblenz can share know how.

bye, Markus

10

hey @Sohail,

I have one more question regarding Go2, you said it cannot go autonomously, so how is it currently,

  1. If the battery is low does the Go2 detects that and decides to go to the docking station, and then navigates itself to the docking station
  2. We have to press a button or something manually after we realize that battery is low and give command to Go2 to go to docking station and it will then navigate itself to the station
  3. That we need to navigate it manually using joystick or controller, to the docking station and place it right in front of it so that it can scan the pattern made on docking station and start charging itself

which one of these are there in Go2 currently?

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hey @maggus,

Thank you so much for sharing the project and also for helping me and solving my doubts, hope to work more together with you in future.

Regards. Ravin