Robots Take To the Stairs

Singularity Hub writes "Robots can climb stairs, and they are doing it everywhere you look. 'No big deal' you say, but it really is a big deal. Five to ten years ago, almost nobody was doing it. Now grad students are doing it all by themselves for thesis projects. Check out our review of robots navigating stairs, which includes some awesome videos."

Re:Daleks

[Red Flayer]

Not sure why you got modded off-topic. The subject of Daleks being unable to climb stairs was the source of many a heated argument amongst Dr. Who fans. It's a classic argument

Likely today's moderators are a little young to understand the significance among us older slashdotters.

Here we have a perfect article that makes the Dr. Who reference perfectly on-topic -- hopefully another moderator will have the good sense to undo the damage.

Or maybe I just need to admit I'm old and out-of-touch with today's nerd culture. But really, it's quite unseemly that in the new series, the Daleks *fly*. It's like not having Han shoot first, it's just plain wrong.

wheeled and stable vs dynamically legged robots

[soibudca]

I thought this article was a bit strange. Of the four or five videos posted, only one was a self contained two legged walker (the well known asimo). The others involved various specialized wheel systems. Even asimo relies on static stability. In fact robots (even legged ones) have been climbing stairs for at least 15 years. I remember in the early 90s the society of automobile engineers sponsored a contest for _undergraduate_ engineering students to develop legged robots that could traverse various obstacles -- One of them being a set of stairs. Every year several of the entries were able to pass that test. The more interesting recent developments are with dynamically stable and self contained robots that can climb stairs and traverse other obstacles. This really is a new development in the last 10 years. The most crazy cool example of this I've seen recently is the big dog.