June 5, 2006
DARPA's replacement mule
DARPA has been planning on upgrading to a robotic mule to pack in supplies to difficult terrain. The mechanical engineering on this beast is quite incredible, and my hat is off to the team that came up with this. Like all such current devices, the difficulty will be in getting enough range and power on a mobile platform.
Posted by elkaim at June 5, 2006 7:49 PMA nimble, four-legged robot is so surefooted it can recover its balance even after being given a hefty kick. The machine, which moves like a cross between a goat and a pantomime horse, is being developed as a robotic pack mule for the US military.
BigDog is described by its developers Boston Dynamics as “the most advanced quadruped robot on Earth”. The company have released a new video of the robot negotiating steep slopes, crossing rocky ground and dealing with the sharp kick. View the impressive clip here (28MB Windows media file).
“Internal force sensors detect the ground variations and compensate for them,” says company president and project manager Marc Raibert. “And BigDog's active balance allows it to maintain stability when we disturb it."
This active balance is maintained by four legs, each with three joints powered by actuators and a fourth "springy" joint. All the joints are controlled by an onboard PC processor.