It's old news but the ongoing development on the Big Dog by Boston Dynamics is yielding spectacular results it's literally freaking me out. Big Dog, a project partly funded by DARPA (the same folks behind the Grand and Urban Challenge) is touted as The Most Advanced Quadruped Robot on Earth, and by looks of it, they are not exaggerating.
It is a quadruped robot that walks, runs, and climbs on rough terrain and carries heavy loads. BigDog is powered by a gasoline engine that drives a hydraulic actuation system. BigDog's legs are articulated like an animal’s, and have compliant elements that absorb shock and recycle energy from one step to the next.
It runs on gasoline, which means it has an internal combustion engine. Judging by it's corrective maneuvers, and balancing abilities (especially on the slippery ice), the engine and hydraulics systems seems to be extremely responsive. Along with stereo vision, multitude of sensors including laser gyroscopes, the Big Dog life-like movement is simply astounding. And yes, that's freaky, just check the video out.
And the earlier BETA version. It's capable of more sets of maneuvers, but they haven't got the balancing right yet.
Other stuff
By the looks of it, it won't be long before the Americans start having AT-AT Walkers in their military. Now where's my harpoon equipped Snowspeeders.
1 Comment:
Cool Picture there. Is that thing real?-smile-
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