ATRIAS Bipedal Robot Can Take a Beating and Keep Walking

Zothecula writes The great tradition of designing robots inspired by the many beautiful forms of locomotion seen in the animal kingdom likely predates robotics itself, arguably stretching all the way back to Michelangelo's time. Standing on the shoulders of such giants is ATRIAS, a series of human-sized bipedal robots that remind us of other two-legged creatures like the ostrich or emu. It must be a great tension-reliever in the robotics lab to have a robot you can literally kick without knocking it off balance.

youtube movies

[itzly]

Here's a bunch of youtube movies of the Atrias robot:
https://www.youtube.com/playli... [youtube.com]

Re:

[binarylarry]

This isn't exactly new, Boston Dynamics has had this stuff for ever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

They're owned by Google now.

Re:youtube movies

[binarylarry]

Yep they do that also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

Bullying?

[Anonymous Coward]

Kicking someone while they are walking is a tactic of bullying. What's next? Hurling insults and social shunning? Just say "no" to bullying.

Proof of concept

[fred911]

But you have to wonder how long or far it could travel untethered. Mounting a control system and battery has got to be a challenge. It looks fairly heavy for any real distance hauls.

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[wonkey_monkey]

ATRIAS now has onboard power, wireless coms

https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

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[wonkey_monkey]

Though as for how far or how long, no idea. But it does have some onboard power, at least.

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[K. S. Kyosuke]

Hey, I was going to say "so, when are they going to mount a machine gun onto that?"...

These are land-based drones

[Anonymous Coward]

Make no mistake, these devices ARE going to be used to hurt or kill humans, just as drone aircraft
have been used.

The hope of humans will lie in the fact that humans have endless ingenuity and that sabotaging
a robot will always be possible. And since the damned things are going to be on the ground it
will be easy to access them and "neutralize" them.

You can deride my comment because it recalls the theme of the "Terminator" movies, but that
doesn't mean it is not going to happen in real life.

Re:These are land-based drones

[RightwingNutjob]

So what? Almost all tech that moves you on the way to a star-trekky society free of poverty and want has its roots in war and savegery. Airplane technology really only spread its wings during the two world wars. The first electronic computer was used to compute ballistics tables. The first programmable electromechanical computer was used to crack Nazi encryption. So the robot that gets developed today to kill enemy soldiers will be used tomorrow for a half dozen peaceful applications I can't even imagine right now. True savages wouldn't bother with the last part.

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[RightwingNutjob]

If your government is crooked enough to order your death with a drone on a whim, not having the drone isn't going to improve the situation. Third world dictators and western despots, past and present, did and continue to do their killing and pillaging just fine without drones. The Khmer Rouge didn't need drones. Charles Taylor didn't need drones. Tech is like oxygen. It's only bad if there's already a fire burning.

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[itzly]

The hope of humans will lie in the fact that humans have endless ingenuity and that sabotaging a robot will always be possible.

Until the robots get a better brain that humans.

Shit!

[Greyfox]

You mean soon the computer will be a match for me in chess AND kickboxing?!

Re:

[itzly]

And it will also beat you in chessboxing.

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[K. S. Kyosuke]

I thought that was called biathlon? A weird one, granted, but still...

Pee-pee dance

[wonkey_monkey]

ATRIAS looks like it's constantly bursting to take a leak.