The brainchild of Jeff Weber and Aaron Edsinger, cofounders of Meka Robotics, its name comes from the Japanese phrase for "thank you very much", domo arigato, as well as the Styx song, "Mr. Roboto".
The home of the Domo Project is with the Humanoid Robotics Group at MIT Artificial Intelligence Labs.
[3] The lab group worked to create a cable-drive brushless Series Elastic Actuator arm mounted to a Segway platform.
Jeff Weber and Aaron Edsinger-Gonzales were a part of this research, specifically responsible for the design and implementation of the robotic arm.
Edsinger and Weber collaborated on many other robots as well, and their experience working with the Kismet[4] page and Cog[5] projects influenced the design of Domo.
Edsinger's contribution to the Cog project was a Series Elastic Actuator arm and controllers for the body of the robot.
[6] Domo was created in order to research manipulation and interaction with stimuli and machine learning of sensorimotor skills.
[7] Heads of previous robots, such as Cog, were impeded by the bundle of electrical cords that would run to the eye cameras and motors.
Human arms are adept at sensing and controlling the forces at every joint, giving up precision in position for compliance.
Translating this to a humanoid robot required the design to include some tolerance and compliance at every joint while also being able to keep track of and output torque.
[8] Using the two cameras mounted on its head and the visual processing system, Domo is able to analyze the size and shape of an object to prepare for interaction.
Domo is able to learn about its own sensorimotor abilities and is able to fine-tune the modulation of its actions based on previously accomplished tasks.