Soccerbots Learn How To Fall Gracefully 105
wjousts writes "Up until now, most work with humanoid robotics has focused on keeping them upright and balanced, but in the real world, falling down is inevitable. So now researcher in Chile are looking at teaching their Soccerbots how to fall down gracefully to minimize damage and allow for a quick recovery.
According to a New Scientist article, 'They found that one of the main ways to minimise damage is for the robot to fold its legs underneath it. Among other things, that means the robot is much less likely to hit its head on the ground. Another good strategy is to use a fall sequence consisting of several movements, so the falling body has several points of contact with the ground, spreading the energy of the impact over a large number of joints, rather than taking it all in one disastrous crunch.'"
Fail gracefully? (Score:5, Funny)
You've obviously never seen soccer.
The bot will tap into the bot with the ball, then proceed to spin at full speed until it lets some smoke out of the IC. Look around to see if anyone saw it and continue playing.
Re:Fail gracefully? (Score:5, Funny)
Fall gracefully, as in like a 3rd rate theatre actor playing Hamlet that staggers about for 5 minutes and gets up 3 more times to exaggerate the death.
Not Fail gracefully, as in take out a bank or two but still get $100 million in severance while everyone who worked for you is turfed out on the street without even their entitelments.
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Even more life-like (Score:4, Funny)
They can take a dive, just like real soccer players!
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Like a Turing Test for Soccerbots?
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Sweet. Then we can give Cesc Fabregas an 'I failed the Turing Test' shirt.
This is great (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is great (Score:4, Insightful)
Every Italian soccer player knows that the most important skill is knowing when and how to fall.
Fixed that for you.
Re:This is great (Score:4, Funny)
Fixed it again for you.
;)
Hey, don't look at me that way. I'm chilean. We chileans and argentineans have this "healthy" rivalry going on, you know
Re:This is great (Score:5, Funny)
Every Chelsea player knows that the most important skill is knowing when and how to fall.
There, that should cover just about every nationality besides English.
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The homegrown star (singular) has been sat on the bench since 2003
Re:This is great (Score:4, Informative)
Every Chelsea player knows that the most important skill is knowing when and how to fall.
There, that should cover just about every nationality besides English.
That's nothing. Here in Italy, Inter played whole swathes of the season with exactly one (1) Italian player in the field.
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Ummm, there's quite a few English players in Chelsea (Lampard, Terry, A. Cole, etc). Besides, the only person on Chelsea who really dives is Drogba.
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Every Portuguese soccer player and in particular those from FC Porto knows that the most important skill is knowing when and how to fall. And that you shouldn't stay upright for more then 30 seconds at a time.
Fixed it again for you.
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No the most important skill is to know how to fall and make it look like the other team pushed you.
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Re:This is great (Score:4, Interesting)
Absolutely. Have they taught them to fall like they're mortally wounded, yet be back on their feet in no time if the referee doesn't blow the whistle?
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Every soccer player knows that the most important skill is knowing when and how to fall.
Yea, right after being able to dribble, pass, shoot, read the field...
The essense of Judo (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The essense of Judo (Score:4, Interesting)
You can also slam the ground with your limbs, transferring the momentum to your torso and reducing the impact on it and on your head. I'm surprised they haven't experimented with that move yet.
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I read that as 'Customers do make great cushions, after all.' I think I've worked in support for far too long...
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Or maybe the RIAA?
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I read that as 'Customers do make great cushions, after all.' I think I've worked in support for far too long...
No, you've worked in support too long when you read that as "Customers make great targets"
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You can also slam the ground with your limbs, transferring the momentum to your torso and reducing the impact on it and on your head. I'm surprised they haven't experimented with that move yet.
Or you could build robots that don't have a head. Or put delicate components elsewhere. (That's not t'say this research won't be useful, for example in medical applications. I'm just sayin'.)
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That would probably cause more damage to the limbs than it saves the torso. Who knows?
Re:The essense of Judo (Score:4, Informative)
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The roll decreases the rate at which the impact energy enters your body, the slap distributes the energy & helps prevent har
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But if you're not rolling - say you get dumped on your back or side - then you need to take a lot of the energy out of the impact.
As far as the 'causing more injury to the limbs than the torso' goes: I have done thousands of breakfalls, the majority landing on one side, and a lot of them pretty damn hard. My arms are fine, my head hasn't hit the floor in ages, and I don't get the wind knocked out of me that often. I know that if I throw someone hard and they don't breakfall properly (which is a combinatio
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Slashdotters don't need any Randori bots as their mothers do the randori for them.
"Domo arigatou mama roboto"
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As a fellow Judo practitioner and also a former soccer player, I can attest there's one very important difference between breakfalls in the two sports: in soccer people fall over, clutch their legs, and howl in pain until the penalty whistle is blown. Then they stand up and are fine.
Actually, it was shit like that that made me stop playing soccer.
The essense of Soccer (Score:2)
... is to fall in such a way as to get the other guy a yellow or even red card. Maybe even get yourself a penalty kick. Er and yeah, not get hurt. But that red card is more important.
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I think they teach a similar fall in the Army's jump school. You land on your feet, take another impact on the side of your knee, another on your thigh, and a fourth on the shoulder. It spreads the damage around, hopefully reducing it.
Of course, if your parachute fails, it's very hard to do, and there's probably not much point to it.
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uh, that's how Chuck Norris practices his break falls.
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*Ahem* (Score:1, Funny)
But seriously, I want one of these on my side come the next soccer riot.
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"They play football for keeps in South America" - Arthur C Clarke.
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I hope not, the South Americans all juggle and rainbow kick like pussies. You never see Brazilian fullbacks palming their opponents' faces or sharpening their cleat spikes into tendon shredding razor talons.
Anyway, given how confrontational our sports leagues tend to be, I'd imagine that English style soccer (sorry, but we already have an inappropriately named football, that ship has sailed) has a much better shot of making it here.
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Futbol
other applications (Score:1)
Diving (Score:2, Funny)
South americans teaching their bots how to dive - whatever next? :)
Whatever next? (Score:5, Funny)
Argentinian soccerbots with hands.
This grudge is now 23 years old. Hopefully it will be moving out on its own once it's done with grad school.
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I really don't think you quite understand how we feel about that :)
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If you got soccer players... (Score:4, Funny)
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And then they'll come up with saboteur-bots whose purpose is to cause a disruption and do as much damage to other bots as possible.
Not to mention unruly-fan-bots. Where would we be if our robots couldn't take on those essential roles also?
Help! (Score:3)
I'm sorry. I couldn't resist.
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Soccerbot3000: I've fallen and I can't get up!
So to solve it we just give all of them those lifealert button things?
I'm curious... (Score:1, Funny)
Are they called Football Bots in other parts of the world?
Next step (Score:4, Funny)
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No. At the end of the match they _stop_ drinking alcohol to make themselves incoherent.
PLF (Score:4, Interesting)
Get your head out of your fourth point of contact [wikipedia.org] and send 'em to Airborne School. All the way, Airborne!
-Peter
I for one... (Score:5, Funny)
Welcome the downfall of our graceful robotic overlords.
Simulation? (Score:1)
Gives a Matlab Simulation a whole new meaning.
(I'm guessing mainly the referees here will get that one... :-P)
Bah (Score:2)
Just over the thing with Nerf. If it's going to win at Soccer, getting up quickly is more important.
If the goal is to win "this" match... self preservation is important.
If the goal is to give the robot a long life with happiness, stop the Soccer lessons and teach them robot sex.
Perfect timing (Score:2)
I have been spending the last decade learning how best to push robots! Robot, take me to your leaner.
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I respectfully disagree. I think /prying/ robots is the key, and the only true way to do it with robots is to pry them.
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No, you lean on them like cows, then push hard to tip them over
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Get em drunk. (Score:3, Funny)
Everyone knows drunks can fall over and not hurt themselves far better than sober people.
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Well of course; you're far too focused on not spilling your pint to tense up as you fall, so you're less likely to seriously hurt yourself.
aikido bots (Score:1)
Soccerbot moms (Score:1, Funny)
Maybe they wouldn't fall so much if the Soccerbot moms didn't push them so hard...
Um, duh... (Score:2)
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Learning how to fall - Learning how to walk (Score:5, Interesting)
As a Dad, it would seem to me that robots learning how to fall is a prerequisite for learning how to walk. Children around 12 months old spend a lot of time learning how to fall gracefully, so that they have the confidence to actually take steps and walk without fear of damaging themselves.
I recall a video some years back of a number of Japanese engineers racing towards a walking robot that was about to fall, for fear of it breaking. Somewhere in the back of my head I wondered if they ever took the time to observe humans learning to walk.
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Strange, but isn't that a metaphor for life?
Learning to fall, without fighting it so you can get back up and start over again...
Booze is the answer (Score:3, Interesting)
Many sports - skiing for example - are best enjoyed in a 'relaxed' state. When I started to ski, I used to hurt myself in the inevitable, regular falls. A sympathetic fellow-novice provided support in the form of regular shots of decent whisky from the largest hip-flask I'd ever seen.
Pretty soon I was collapsing gracefully into the snow with no difficulty or pain / damage.
Put some 200-proof in the 'bots hydraulics and it'll be fine...
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In japanese martial arts, ... (Score:4, Informative)
...people often hit against the floor with their arms and legs in the very moment of ground impact.
The reasoning behind this is "momentum conservation". Basically, the momentum of the whole body is split in the momentum of the torso+head (i.e. most vital parts) and the momentum of the extremities. While during the fall all parts of the body move downwards with approximately the same speed, in the moment of impact the falling person hits his arms/legs against the ground, this way giving them extra momentum downwards. By the laws of physics (specifically momentum conservation), this momentum has to come from somewhere. And that "somewhere" is torso+head, i.e. vital parts of the body get slower -- the slower, the harder one hits his arms/legs against the ground.
This basically saves from internal organ injuries at the expense of the outer extremities, which, in general, are more robust and less critical to survival.
There are three problems that should be solved with robots, if something similar is to be tried:
1) The extremities. Robots need outer extremities, and they should be rather massive -- the more massive, the more momentum they can generate.
2) The joints. Joints to outer extremities should unlock immediately in the moment of inpact in order not to transfer the vibrations of impact from the extremites through the joints to the rest.
3) Useful energy dissipation mechanisms in the extremities. The whole idea is not only that the robot "survives", but that it actually can continue playing after falling. Therefore the extremity is to be built in such a way, that it has some kind of soft, massive buffer, that can get deformed repeatedly on impact without braking (think of "sand sack", for example).
The more I think about it: why not anchor 3-4 sand weights to the robot's outer shell, and "shoot" them against the ground during the impact? Also make them automatically retractable at some point (maybe version 2.0? :-) by having strings attached to them, so that the robot can reuse them minutes later...
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Useful energy dissipation mechanisms in the extremities.
...actually, this ought to work pretty tight:
- equip the robots with a water tank (say 10-20% of their weight) under high pressure. The water tank should be inside the robot, somewhere central (for equal distribution of weight).
- make a belt containing 5-10 small orrifices distribuited equally around the robot, that have direct link to the water tank and can be opened/closed electronically somewhere above "waist high" (mayber upper third).
- equip the robot with g
They should talk to Judokas (Score:2)
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so the North American Marlon Brando Look Alikes, knocked on your door and you fell down? Priceless.
Oh good (Score:2)
So not only do we have premier league footballers falling over at the slightest hint of getting a penalty we'll now have robots doing the same ;) but then they do say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery...
Will we also have Vinny Jones soccerbots who learn just how to kick the opposition robot so it goes off injured without themselves being sent off?
Ah yes ... the PLF (Score:1)
Parachute Landing Fall. Humans have been doing that regularly for the past 60 years or so.
So send the robot to Jump School at Fort Benning; I'm sure they'll be glad to oblige. Just so it can do pushups ... thousands and thousands of pushups. That's a necessary prerequisite, you see.
Toad, Airborne Toad
PLF (Score:2)
"Another good strategy is to use a fall sequence consisting of several movements, so the falling body has several points of contact with the ground, spreading the energy of the impact over a large number of joints, rather than taking it all in one disastrous crunch."
This is called a parachute landing fall. The military and the skydiving community have been teaching it for decades.
Comparing soccerbots to soccer players... (Score:1)
So they have learned to dive but ... (Score:2)
Yawn (Score:2)
Nao's are fragile (Score:3, Informative)
I've worked with NAO robots, and while they are very sophisticated, they are also very fragile. Especially the fingers will break at the slightest provocation.
When working with these robots you constantly have to hold them to prevent them from falling. As the robots are rather heavy and have quite powerfull engines you arms tend to get tired from working with them. Fortunately there is a decent simulator.
We've considered to buy some inflatable swimming armbands and put them on our robots to protect them from falling.