Back online!
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
Seeing as how it's an (early?) prototype, and it's already doing that well, I'd expect it to be faster and quieter by the time it's put into service. I'd love to have one has a pet when i'm in country.
The Most Advanced Quadruped Robot on EarthBigDog is the alpha male of the Boston Dynamics family of robots. It is a quadruped robot that walks, runs, and climbs on rough terrain and carries heavy loads. BigDog is powered by a gasoline engine that drives a hydraulic actuation system. BigDog's legs are articulated like an animal?s, and have compliant elements that absorb shock and recycle energy from one step to the next. BigDog is the size of a large dog or small mule, measuring 1 meter long, 0.7 meters tall and 75 kg weight. BigDog has an on-board computer that controls locomotion, servos the legs and handles a wide variety of sensors. BigDog?s control system manages the dynamics of its behavior to keep it balanced, steer, navigate, and regulate energetics as conditions vary. Sensors for locomotion include joint position, joint force, ground contact, ground load, a laser gyroscope, and a stereo vision system. Other sensors focus on the internal state of BigDog, monitoring the hydraulic pressure, oil temperature, engine temperature, rpm, battery charge and others.In separate trials, BigDog runs at 4 mph, climbs slopes up to 35 degrees, walks across rubble, and carries a 340 lb load.BigDog is being developed by Boston Dynamics with the goal of creating robots that have rough-terrain mobility that can take them anywhere on Earth that people and animals can go. The program is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA).
RiSE: The Amazing Climbing RobotRiSE is a small six-legged robot that climbs vertical terrain such as walls, trees and fences. RiSE?s feet have claws, micro-claws or sticky material, depending on the climbing surface. RiSE changes posture to conform to the curvature of the climbing surface and a fixed tail helps RiSE balance on steep ascents. RiSE is about 0.25 m long, weighs 2 kg, and travels 0.3 m/s.Each of RiSE?s six legs is powered by two electric motors. An onboard computer controls leg motion, manages communications, and services a variety of sensors. The sensors include an inertial measurement unit, joint position sensors for each leg, leg strain sensors and foot contact sensors. Future versions of RiSE will use dry adhesion to climb sheer vertical surfaces such as glass and metal. Boston Dynamics is developing RiSE in conjunction with researchers at University of Pennsylvania, Carnegie Mellon, Berkeley, Stanford, and Lewis and Clark University. RiSE is funded by the DARPA Defense Sciences Office.
Sony Corporation turned to Boston Dynamics for help developing its line of entertainment robots. We adapted our physics-based human simulation to work for Sony?s humanoid robot, QRIO. The result is a physics-based robot simulator used to develop mechanical designs, control systems, and motion planning. Using the simulator, Sony?s engineers test ideas for robot design, control and behavior before building them into the physical robot.