bipedal – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Stories filed under: "bipedal"

DailyDirt: More Walking Robots

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Honda’s ASIMO and other walking robots don’t really look like much of match for catching up with people running away from them. But like zombies, robots never get tired and can just keep walking slowly towards you (as long as their batteries last, that is). Here are just a few examples of some robots that are starting to walk a bit more like us.

• Boston Dynamics has been working on a 6’2″ tall humanoid robot named Atlas. It can walk over rubble, and someday it will say, “I’ll be back” in an Austrian accent. [url]
• Researchers at the Humanoid Robotics Institute have designed a robotic leg with many of the same joints and features of a human leg. It’s actually not that easy to get a robot leg to have all the same range of motions as a real human leg. [url]
• Robot legs using a neural network to mimic human walking has created one of the first biologically-accurate models of the human gait. This research could help us understand how babies learn to walk and how people with spinal cord injuries might learn to walk again. [url]

If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: asimo, atlas, biomimicry, bipedal, gait, humanoid, locomotion, mabel, robots, terminator, walking
Companies: boston dynamics, darpa, honda, humanoid robotics institute

DailyDirt: Dance, Robots, Dance!

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Watching robots learn how to move can be fascinating, as the machines wobble and tilt almost like infants/toddlers do. But no one really cares if a robot topples over and hurts itself (well, unless you’re the owner of a very expensive prototype robot…). If you want to see a few robots moving around gracefully, though, check out these videos.

• The HyTAQ Robot can roll around on the ground and fly over obstacles whenever it needs to. This bot looks pretty crash resistant, and if it can survive kids playing with it, it’d probably be a great toy. [url]
• If you thought only hipsters rode fixies, then you should watch this cute little Japanese robot ride a small bike without brakes. This bot just needs a companion that can ride a recumbent bike…. [url]
• Here’s a bipedal robot walking a tightrope, but it sorta cheats because it doesn’t lift its feet off the wire once it gets on. (Warning: You might want to mute this video to avoid the dance music.) Maybe someday there will be a robot version of Cirque du Soleil. [url]

If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: bipedal, bot, hytaq robot, locomotion, robots