Building a robot shoulder or hip joint usually means clumsily stacking three separate actuators on top of each other—a solution that’s as inefficient and cumbersome as it sounds. Inventor Bryce Cianciotto presents his alternative, the Orbit Actuator, which ditches the serial stack for a single, integrated unit that moves like a biological ball joint. This deep dive with the Robotics Tech podcast explores how the novel design could make future humanoids less about managing a tower of motors and more about graceful, efficient movement.
