Our first robot product, Mini Pupper, was successfully launched last year. It helped us to connect with thousands of robot lovers, bringing joy and excitement to our valued supporters.  

Mini Pupper workshops at ROSCon, Ubuntu Summit, AWS re: MARS re: Invent

We’re back again and excited to announce our next 12DoF robot product that rethinks the standard servo robot dog. It’s an entirely new experience.

Join us and bring the robot dog into reality again. 

Embedded with an improved servo system, our new robot can react to its environment much more intelligently. Apart from supporting ROS1 and Raspberry Pi, the robot also supports ROS2 and Arduino (ESP32).  

12DOF

IMU

With the joint effort of our global supporters and our devoted tech team, our new Mini Pupper will be embedded with a smarter servo allowing the robot to perform more interesting actions in a smarter manner!     

What’s the difference between Mini Pupper 2 and Mini Pupper 2 Pro? Please refer to the below table and pictures for general info, for detailed info, please refer to the below “Custom Legged Servo” section, thanks!

This year it’s time to reach the next level. We vastly improved upon the powerful Mini Pupper servo we invented last year and added several useful features. The Mini Pupper 2 servo has position feedback, and Mini Pupper 2 Pro has the position, velocity, and torque feedback. The low-level servo algorithm runs on a separate powerful MCU. They are the real custom smart servo for the new Mini Pupper. We’re certain, you will be amazed again by our new Mini Puppers.

Mini Pupper 2 Pro Servo Prototype

There is a powerful MCU to control each leg(3 servos), that is, there are 4 separate MCUs to implement the position, velocity, and torque feedback. The below picture shows the 1st version MCU servo control board for the feature evaluation, the final version will be much smaller.

Mini Pupper 2 Servo Iteration

Unlike the standard servo robot dog in the market, you are NOT required to perform manual calibration numerous times. With just a single ‘click’, the calibration will run automatically.

Enjoy the spontaneous Mini Pupper in one go.   

Similar to Boston Dynamics Spot or MIT Mini cheetah robot dog, you can explore closed-loop control with GRF (ground reaction force) feedback.  

The Robot Operating System (ROS) is a set of software libraries and tools for building robot applications. Since ROS was started in 2007, a lot has changed in the robotics and ROS community. The goal of the ROS 2 project is to adapt to these changes, leveraging what is great about ROS 1 and improving what isn’t.

The Mini Puppers support not only ROS1, but also ROS 2, and we plan to release the ROS2 version before shipping.   Humble Hawksbill (humble) is the most important ROS 2 distribution so far. It is a long-term support (LTS) release and it has become ROS 2 community’s primary choice for adding new features or maintaining. We are going to upgrade the software to humble based on Mini Pupper and then the new Mini Pupper.

ROS 2 SLAM

With Lidar and OpenCV 3D camera modules, Mini Pupper can perform self-driving capabilities like SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping), navigation, and object tracking in full 3D coordinates. There are endless possibilities. 

The new Mini Pupper will support not only all the OpenCV AI features on Mini Pupper, but also support many more interesting use cases and will release step by step. The below link shows “The Mini Pupper 2 Robotics Kit on OpenCV Weekly” hosted by Satya Mallick (CEO, OpenCV).

You can also run pet detection features to provide a live connection to your pets so that you have peace of mind about them, no matter where you are.

The Mini Pupper was officially recognized and widely promoted by Raspberry Pi. Our latest series will support both Raspberry Pi and Arduino (ESP32). It’s more convenient for you to explore more!

We hope to bring a brand new journey to the supporters of biomimetic robotics.  

Flash software using Arduino

We hosted the Mini Pupper workshops on the events of AWS re: MARS, ROSCon, Ubuntu Summit, and AWS reInvent. It was a great success and received attention from global robotics lovers. We’d like to invite our global users to play in each workshop together.

The new Mini Pupper will join many more global events in 2023, Join us and bring our puppers to travel around the globe! 

 We have built a robotics ecosystem to gather all the robot lovers for support and sharing.

We support multi-language online educational courses for our Mini Pupper Family. There are also enough YouTube video clips to show how to use it.  First-time buyers including students can learn anytime and anywhere.

Users can exchange ideas and explore different possibilities with our pupper in our Discord channel as well.   

Our Mini Pupper series are all open-source robots. Users can explore different opportunities and functionalities.    

The payload should be less than 200g. 

You can use our custom wall power adapter to develop and debug 24×7 without draining the battery.

You can use whatever interface you like to enjoy your Mini Pupper, such as Controller, PC Keyboard, and Mobile phones.    

It is also an awesome way to build a strong and healthy bond with your child.

Regarding Mini Pupper 2 and Mini Pupper 2 Pro, the main difference is in the servo system. The 2 Pro contains a smarter servo. They are both smarter than Mini Pupper.  

Package Recommendation:

•  Upgrade parts: If you backed Mini Pupper before and hope to only back the Mini Pupper 2 updated parts, please refer to this choice. But you have to disassemble your Mini Pupper first. This option is not for Mini Pupper 2 Pro because the servo system is not the final version, we hope to totally re-design it including the motor and gears if there are enough Mini Pupper 2 Pro backers, the dimensions may be different, it’s hard to make an upgrade parts for Mini Pupper 2 Pro.
• Basic Kit: You only need to prepare: a Raspberry Pi module, and an SD card.
• Complete kit： Includes all the parts and tools to build and program.
• Pre-assembled Kit: Everything you will need to run and program your Mini Pupper Robot right out of the box. All software is installed.

We will ship the CM4 module as default, if you want to use the Pi4B board, please refer to our reference placement(maybe update to a better placement version in the future).

OAK-D-Lite 3D camera module at the front, Lidar module at the rear.

Add-Ons: 

• Lidar module: If you want to explore ROS SLAM, navigation functions based on Lidar, you also need a Lidar module. We can ONLY ensure the Lidar module can work well based on our source code, and NOT ensure that you get from other channels. We use LD19 Lidar as it is smaller.
• Video Capture Card 4K HDMI to USB-A/USB-C Bundle with Micro HDMI to HDMI Cable 4K 60Hz：connect your pupper to your PC directly, it’s very convenient to develop and debug without any additional display.

MangDang specializes in the research, development, and production of robot products. We focus on designing and controlling robots using insights taken from the natural world.

From Day 1, we had no doubt and decided to introduce an open-source Mini Pupper to the world and encourage collaborations among robotics lovers. We trust that great products come from joint efforts. We passed our 1st milestone and encourage you to join us to bring our Mini Pupper Family into reality. We would like to keep our momentum and influence people to love robots and create a better world.

Our talented and diversified team is comprised of a host of global experts in robotics. We truly love our specialization and the team. This great combination allows us to innovate, and create differentiation.

We’re testing the prototype devices and plan to ship from March 2023.