Balancing Robot Can Take a Kicking

BotKicker writes "A Japanese team has created the first full-size humanoid robot that won't fall over if you push it. A video shows it staggering and regaining balance after blows from a researcher. Being able to withstand shoves and kicks is essential if robots are to truly be our buddies, they reckon. 'The robot's balancing ability depends on its joints. For one thing they are never kept rigid, even when standing still, meaning they yield slightly when the robot is pushed. Force sensors within each joint also work out the position and velocity of the robot's centre mass as it moves around. Control software rapidly figures out what forces the robot's feet need to exert on the ground to bring it back into balance, and tells the joints how to act.'"

Been done

[spun (1352)]

I saw a show on the Discovery channel over a decade ago showing a one legged robot that could recover it's balance when kicked.

Re:Been done

[badboy_tw2002 (524611)]

Oh yeah, well I saw a PBS special where a no legged robot could maintain its balance when kicked. I think it was disguised as a garbage can or something. So that's even cooler!

Re:Been done

[twistedsymphony (956982)]

Oh yeah, well I saw a PBS special where a no legged robot could maintain its balance when kicked. ...

Prior Art = Weeble Wobble

Re:Been done

[ArsonSmith (13997)]

Well perhaps in a decade or so they'll invent a 3 legged robot that can recover it's balance when kicked.

it's called progress. duh.

Chuck Norris

[silgaun (1029852)]

What about a roundhouse kick?

I for one...

[Mandovert (1140887)]

I for one welcome our balancing overlords.

ridiculous

[ILuvRamen (1026668)]

That's handy but come on, if I gave it a full force running, mid air, knee extension kick that you use on a person's sternum in martial arts to knock them clear off their feet, I doubt it could stay standing. Of course they didn't make it to combat standard but...if they made it tase me before I got to it when it detected I was about to kick it, now that would solve the problem lol

Re:

[Bwana Geek (1033040)]

I doubt the point is for the robot to be impossible to knock over, just for it to have a similar sense of balance to a human. The next step, if I may hazard a guess, would probably be testing to see if it can maintain it's balance while walking along uneven surfaces, stairs, sharp inclines, etc. Also important would be its ability to return to a standing position if a random Slashdotter gives it a full-force, running, midair knee-extension kick.

I, for one,

[MPAB (1074440)]

welcome our new never falling robot overlords.

With friends like these......

[NiteShaed (315799)]

Being able to withstand shoves and kicks is essential if robots are to truly be our buddies, they reckon.

If these guys tend to kick and shove their buddies, it may explain why they have so much time to work on robots....."Finally, a friend I can kick who won't think I'm a jerk"

Nothing like the Server's Kicking.

[TechyImmigrant (175943)]

Unlike the robot, the server seems to have been unable to cope with the kicking it got after getting a good hard slashdotting.

Re:

[MightyYar (622222)]

Loaded fine for me. Here's the coral cache version of the video [nyud.net] if you are still having problems.

With friends like these...

[Jherek Carnelian (831679)]

Being able to withstand shoves and kicks is essential if robots are to truly be our buddies, they reckon.

If you can't kick your buddy in the head, he really isn't your buddy.

Sounds like someone's been playing too many violent video games.

Re:With friends like these...

[khendron (225184)]

Being able to withstand shoves and kicks is essential if robots are to truly be our buddies, they reckon.

The next generation of "friend" robots will also help you hide a body.

Cool

[Cillian (1003268)]

This is obviously a massive step forward - the major stereotypical problem with robots in the past has been their instability and slow shuffling. This opens the door to having them perform tasks like bend over and pick up weighty objects, which would have probably been impossible without this balancing mechanism.

Re:Cool

[CRCulver (715279)]

This is obviously a massive step forward - the major stereotypical problem with robots in the past has been their instability and slow shuffling.

I'd say the major stereotypical problems with robots in the past is that they might go beserk and kill people.

Re:Cool

[TechyImmigrant (175943)]

> perform tasks like bend over and pick up weighty objects

A robot should not bend over and pick up weighty objects. It should squat and pick it up while maintaining it s rear electrical conduit in a straight configuration to prevent getting a herniated servo in the back.
 

Next step: decide when staggering is a good idea

[merreborn (853723)]

Sometimes, staggering backwards is the wrong choice.

For example, you're standing on the sidewalk with your back to traffic. Someone bumps into you. You will do everything in your power *not* to stagger backwards in this situation -- you might reach out to grab something solid, like a signpost, a trash can, or the hand of someone with a body mass comparable or greater than your own. But you wouldn't reach for the hand of a child -- you'd just end up pulling them into the street with you.

You've got a split second to make this choice, as well. Make it wrong, and you may die, or even take someone else with you.

Re:Next step: decide when staggering is a good ide

[mcmonkey (96054)]

You've got a split second to make this choice, as well. Make it wrong, and you may die, or even take someone else with you.

I think you're spending the last moment of your life over-thinking the situation.

First, why wouldn't I reach for the hand of a child (if that was the closet/best option)? If the issue is I'm falling back beause my center of mass is behind me, I only need to shift the mass, not overcome the momentum of my movement. Yes, I will pull the child towards me, but it may be enough of a shift in mass to pull myself towards the child as well.

Second, this is likely on of those less-is-more situations. If I'm on the side of a busy street, and not on the edge of a tall cliff, I'm probably better off just taking a small step back to steady myself. In fighting to keep my feet in front of me, I leave my body without support, and end up falling into traffic.

Third, if I make a habit of putting myself into situations where the slighest loss of balance may result in a life-or-death situation, maybe the gene pool will be better off if I do fall into traffic.

Easier

[snl2587 (1177409)]

This would be a lot easier if they just made the robots in the shape of a bop bag.

Quoth the robot

[halcyon1234 (834388)]

... "Kick my shiny, metal ass."

Contempt for Robots

[Chris Burke (6130)]

That video will probably be one of the first exhibits in the Case for the Robot Uprising. As you can clearly see, not only did humans from the beginning view robots as being menial servants that we can push around and bully, we actually engineered them so that we could shove and kick them at will without interfering with their service of us! They're designed to be abused!

In an cruel twist, it is this same ability that will make our punches and kicks ineffectual for defending our fleshy bodies from the robots when they turn against us.

Fudd's Law

[weav (158099)]

I suppose this is the first exception to Fudd's Law: If you push something hard enough, it will fall over...

On the other hand, it may just raise the energy barrier, so to speak.

Just wait till they fight back...

[stuporglue (1167677)]

The robot in the video sure looked like he was just waiting for the researcher to turn his back.

Other applications....

[CodeShark (17400)]

I wonder if people get the significance of this, because robotics at it's core isn't always about autonomous arthromorphic creations. Sometime's it's about assistance.

I recently met an MS sufferer that has been completely confined to a wheelchair for years because the nerves in her legs don't fire properly, even though she has sensation and can tell when she is not balanced.

So take this so called "robot" technology, and make it something that becomes sort of like a small exo-skeletal muscle system. Call it robotically controlled balance assistance, or whatever you want.

End result, she's out of the chair. In the real world. Good, no?