>> ^mxxcon:

why don't they just buy technology from toyota's asimo and make it more agile?
it seems like they are reinventing stuff that japanese companies already developed.


First, that's Honda. Second, probably because BD wants their robots to perform certain functions that ASIMO cannot. ASIMO is 25+ years old now and still can't reliably climb a staircase that it's been specifically programmed to climb. The BD robots, on the other hand, can figure out how to climb terrain on the fly and do it consistently.

Thank you for the laughs, you owe me a new screen and keyboard!

In reply to this comment by Morganth:
No wonder the things turn on us. Terminator's still learning how to walk and that jackass just shoves it.

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>> ^bmacs27:

>> ^mxxcon:
why don't they just buy technology from toyota's asimo and make it more agile?
it seems like they are reinventing stuff that japanese companies already developed.

This is way beyond Asimo.
and it took them how long and how much money?

>> ^mxxcon:

why don't they just buy technology from toyota's asimo and make it more agile?
it seems like they are reinventing stuff that japanese companies already developed.


This is way beyond Asimo.

>> ^MycroftHomlz:

The truth is Isaac Asimov's reality is just around the corner... if only you knew what science is doing next. The robotics is about to change mankind.


I'm a little more worried about the microscopic robots they hope to inject in our blood stream. I'm pretty sure I can still kick this big toaster's ass at the moment.

Thank you!

In reply to this comment by kulpims:
*promote

>> ^dag:

These guys are awesome. They did the mule right? I would think that the big problem with all of these robots is they need a butt load of power to operate all those servos.


They need to develop a system like the human body has that's the tendon. We charged the tendon up and release energy...that's one of the reasons we're soo good at running long distances at a good pace, better than animals. We have economy of movement on our side...so they gotta work on something like a tendon to propel it that won't take too much constant drain.

I think you misquoted that, shouldn't it read, ""The AlphaDog Proto is a lab prototype for the Legged Squad Support System, a robot being developed by Boston Dynamics with funding from DARPA and the US Marine Corps. When fully developed the system will be capable of draining tax-dollars at a rate impossibe for current technologies to match."

This thing has Congressional Pork all over it. If they could just cut all the utterly stupid defense contracts like this one the US economy might have a fighting chance.

Very cool.

This reminds me of the work that Boston Dynamics is doing.

Wow. Boston Dynamics never ceases to impress. Bipeds are useful because they are so adaptive. Further, this accomplishment demonstrates something deeper. Rather than resolving the unexpected through a more robust form factor, they've demonstrated that we can accomplish similar environmental flexibility through improvement of the control law.

Bipedal locomotion has been a holy grail in robotics for that reason. While it seems so effortless to us, it's one of the most computationally intensive things we do. It's arguably much more complex than playing chess, doing math, or any of the other metrics traditionally considered AI benchmarks.

Regarding the usefulness compared to other designs (e.g. hexapods, or treaded robots), bipeds tend to be able to maintain a higher center of gravity over a smaller base of support. That's useful in a number of tasks. Further, it isn't as if people aren't working on other robotic form factors including snakes, swimmers, flying robots, and x-apods.

Boston Dynamics has done a lot of cool research with walking robots:

Tags for this video have been changed from 'biped, robot, walk, bigdog, boston, dynamics' to 'biped, robot, walk, bigdog, boston dynamics' - edited by kronosposeidon

>> ^TheGenk:

>> ^mrsid:
What's wrong with wheels?

Wheels are like Madonna... their golden age is over but they refuse to go away.

Naw, it's simply like that: Robot legs make everything awesome.


Big Dog is awesome, this is not...

http://videosift.com/video/Boston-Dynamics-Big-Dog

It's an impressive feat, but not as impressive as it seems. The robot wasn't made to respond to any novel dynamic circumstances. It just preformed preprogrammed poses, on a smooth, flat surface. I guess it did a little object tracking too. The real challenge in robotics is dealing with the dynamics, which is why the "big dog" videos by Boston Dynamics are so impressive. Everyone laughs at how it slips on ice, or has trouble getting its footing, but if you put this thing in the same circumstances, it would be a pile of broken circuit boards in no time. Granted, the big dog is quadrupedal, while this is bipedal, which is a much harder problem. Still, it doesn't seem as though they even make an effort to give it dynamic stability. I'm not sure they'll ever get to a decent humanoid robot until they start incorporating more muscle inspired actuators. The servos on these things just don't have the sort of mechanical compliance that allows our sloppy movements to be so forgiving.