Experimenting With Robotic Movement 23
kodiaktau writes "Roboticists with EPFL are playing with new methods of locomotion for robots, modeled after grasshoppers, bats and other non-traditional forms of movement, including leaping and gliding."
Re:Traditional for whom ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Fned is correct. Most robots you see today are known as fully actuated systems. Examples of fully actuated sytems are robotic arms or differential drive robots, or even most humanoid robots. The reason for this control of a fully actuated systems is relatively easy and predictable; given a configuration of a fully actuated robot, we can transition the robot to any other state within its state space. This is why most humanoid robots don't look right when they walk; they strive to retain full control authority and balance at every step, whereas human's are really in a constant state of imbalance as we walk.
The problem is all the very interesting systems out there are under actuated, like the walking human. That is, they have more degrees of freedom than ways of exerting control. In nature, things like birds, fish, insects, and even bats and grasshoppers are under actuated. They have extraordinary mobility, but our robotic equivalents fail miserably. I think it's safe to say that most of the exciting problems in motion planning and control in robotics are in the area of underactuated systems.