Safety Gantry (Suspended Start)

A rig that suspends a humanoid or legged robot during testing so a fall doesn't damage it.

A safety gantry is a gantry frame or mobile crane fitted with a hoist line, used to suspend a robot while testing humanoid or biped robots. It serves two purposes: first, during power-on, zero calibration, or switching control modes, it keeps the robot's legs off the ground so it can't fall over before the controller is ready; second, when testing a new walking policy — especially right after moving it from simulation to the real robot — the line is kept slightly slack, so if the robot loses balance it's caught by the line instead of damaging its joints or shell. Many humanoid makers' getting-started guides require suspending the robot before enabling motion control. It's a basic safety measure for real-robot experiments and plays no part in control itself.

ExampleThe first time a walking policy trained with reinforcement learning is deployed on a real humanoid, the robot is usually hung from a safety gantry to step with its feet off the ground, then gradually lowered until its feet touch down.

Also called

Safety Hoist, Suspension Rig

Related

Humanoid Robot · Sim-to-Real Transfer · Joint Zero Calibration (Homing) · Fall Mitigation and Fall Recovery · Emergency Stop

Sources

Unitree G1 SDK Development Guide