First Dynamically Balancing Biped Robot

damg writes "Anybots, which is three guys led by Trevor Blackwell, has developed the first robot that walks like we do, by dynamically balancing itself rather than being pre-programmed for walking like Asimo. The video shows the robot walking and being pushed by another 'bully' robot to demonstrate that it can't easily be pushed over."

Cool

[mark-t]

I immediately noticed a striking resemblance between how this robot was learning to walk and how my grandson, now 10 months old, makes regular attempts to also solve this problem for himself.

Way cool.

Dexter and Big Dog

[troll -1]

This is obviously a great advancement with enormous potential. But apart from aesthetics I would have thought four legs more practical than two in many circumstances.

DARPA (the US military research folks who helped bring us the Internet) is currently funding Big Dog [wikipedia.org] which I think is has far more potential, because however you calculate it, a quadruped has to have more stability than a biped. Though, in no way do I wish to detract from the achievements of Dexter.

See Big Dog in action here [youtube.com].

Re:Asimo's walking motion seems more natural.

[K'Lyre]

Smoother? Yes.
Natural? Not in the least.

Asimo doesn't walk like we do. Dexter (this new one) looks like a 10-month-old trying to learn to walk. A robot built to walk in the same vein as Asimo will never be able to walk as easily as a human does. There's way too many variables that would have to be hard coded in (as Asimo's programming is).

What, no arms?

[jhfry]

Isn't dynamically balancing easier to do with arms? Not to mention, they allow you to move faster and they can catch you if you fall.

I'd bet it would not be too difficult, certainly not easy but compared to their work to this point it'd be trivial, to add some arms and significantly improve the robot's ability to walk... perhaps even jump and/or run... they could even have it catch itself if it falls.

Urgh

[Fred the computer]

Despite my best efforts, I cant help but apply human characteristics to Dexter the robot. I notice he (dammit! it..) has a rather ugly face, thus i'm naturally repelled by it. Stupid human brain, this is a wonderful demonstration of advanced robotics! Appreciate it! Its interesting though, logic telling me this is quite interesting, unconscious judgment saying ewww. Anyone else think along the same lines?