Advanced Articulated Humanoid Arm Design

I’m deep into building a full-scale humanoid and now need the arm assemblies engineered from the ground up. Your task is to create a pair of arms—shoulder through wrist—with advanced articulation that mimics the smoothness and range of a human limb. The primary goal is reliable interaction with capacitive and resistive touchscreens: tapping, swiping, and multi-touch gestures without damaging the display or the arm’s own mechanisms.

You’ll take ownership of the complete mechanical design cycle: kinematic layout, joint count and placement, actuator selection (servo, harmonic-drive, or torque-controlled motors—whichever best meets performance targets), transmission schemes, and space for wiring, sensors, and compliant fingertips. Expect to iterate through CAD (SolidWorks, Fusion 360, or similar) and back up every decision with basic load, torque, and durability calculations.

Because the arms must eventually bolt onto an existing torso frame, I’ll provide mounting specs and mass limits at project start. Beyond that, I’m flexible on materials and manufacturing methods as long as we stay within a realistic build envelope and leave room for future covers and cable routing.

Deliverables
• 3D CAD files (STEP + native) of left and right arms
• Joint actuation and torque calculations documented in PDF
• Preliminary bill of materials with sourcing notes
• Interface drawing showing how the arms mate to my torso frame
• Short video or simulation clip demonstrating touchscreen gestures

Acceptance criteria
• Minimum 7 DOF per arm, shoulder to wrist
• Full forward reach of 550 mm while carrying a 1 kg load
• End-effector force control fine enough to register on modern capacitive screens
• All fasteners, bearings, and drive elements commercially available

If you’ve previously taken a design from CAD to functional prototype, especially for humanoid or collaborative robots, I’d love to see it. Let’s push some pixels—literally—and give this robot a pair of hands that can text faster than I can.