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I'm honestly surprised about how much interest there has been in a landing controller. I always thought it was a bit less interesting than getting the robot bou

I'm honestly surprised about how much interest there has been in a landing controller. I always thought it was a bit less interesting than getting the robot bouncing around doing new things. I could see how being able to stop gracefully could be useful in some scenarios, but there are some other jumping tasks in the queue before I work on that.

kriro 10y ago
Rather than working on the perfect landing I think a good enough landing would be sufficient (crash and get back into ready to jump posture). Mostly so that the scenario of back to back jumps can be tested (which would also be interesting for stress testing). I'd love to watch the wall jump over and over until the robot breaks/stops for example. Edit: I see something similar is mentioned in future research. Cool :)
- Animats 10y ago
  Rather than working on the perfect landing I think a good enough landing would be sufficient (crash and get back into ready to jump posture). That's been done a few times. The first time was a mobile land mine developed at Sandia. It was a ball with a fuel-powered piston for jumping. After each jump, it used an interior weight to get itself positioned and aimed for the next jump. The plan was to drop a bunch of these from aircraft into enemy territory. When one of them detected a good target, like a convoy, all the mines nearby would converge on the target and blow it up.[1] There's also this small fence-jumping, tracked robot from 2009.[2] Landing is uncontrolled, but it can survive crash landings and run upside down, so that doesn't matter too much. [1] http://www.sandia.gov/LabNews/LN10-20-00/hop_story.html http://www.sandia.gov/LabNews/LN10-20-00/hop_story.html [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjANAebfs6Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjANAebfs6Q
tgb 10y ago
I'm honestly surprised that you're surprised - it's hard to judge what makes the problem difficult if you don't include landing. There's lots of ways to get something to 'jump' (like these toys [1]) that aren't too useful. This isn't meant to be a criticism of your work, but an explanation of the impression it made in me. If it had been presented as "here's a new approach to jumping with these advantages", I'd have been impressed. Billing it as "the most agile jumping robot ever" while not being able to land it is setting your audience up for disappointment. My touchstone for jumping robots is that Boston Dynamics robot that can jump onto a building, and then I saw yours needing safety nets to jump a meter - you just don't want to set me up for that comparison. On the other hand, your video did get me excited to see where you go in the next few years - I definitely do want to see chain jumps exectued, even in controlled evironments. [1] https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/2e/87/10/2e8710fe2ee3b60b262f9e4e66a4751d.jpg https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/2e/87/10/2e87...
- DHaldane 10y ago
  OK, I see where you're coming from. The sandflea is a very practical, application-driven platform, and our robot is just a simple scientific tool meant to test new ideas about jumping. We were interested in the science of the new modes of locomotion so there wasn't much value in developing the landing for this work. We'll try to stick the landing next time.
  - tgb 10y ago
    That would certainly be fun to see! Make sure it ends up on HN again when you've got some more cool stuff to show us.
  - jstrieb 10y ago
    That makes more sense; I, too originally read the post with a different type of robot in mind. After re-watching the video and re-reading the article (and of course reading these HN discussions), I'm appreciating Salto more for what it is: an excellent example of well-engineered biomimicry with a lot of potential for future robots.
- the_duke 10y ago
  Just for reference, here is a video of the mention Boston Dynamics robot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b4ZZQkcNEo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b4ZZQkcNEo Really cool.
chillingeffect 10y ago
by all means, please keep doing what you're doing. it's impressive work. > I'm honestly surprised about how much interest there has been in a landing controller. This is probably the most textbook example of hyperfocus I've ever seen since I was a teenager and kept jumping higher and higher until one day I hit my head on the ceiling!

kriro 10y ago

Rather than working on the perfect landing I think a good enough landing would be sufficient (crash and get back into ready to jump posture). Mostly so that the scenario of back to back jumps can be tested (which would also be interesting for stress testing). I'd love to watch the wall jump over and over until the robot breaks/stops for example. Edit: I see something similar is mentioned in future research. Cool :)

Animats 10y ago
Rather than working on the perfect landing I think a good enough landing would be sufficient (crash and get back into ready to jump posture). That's been done a few times. The first time was a mobile land mine developed at Sandia. It was a ball with a fuel-powered piston for jumping. After each jump, it used an interior weight to get itself positioned and aimed for the next jump. The plan was to drop a bunch of these from aircraft into enemy territory. When one of them detected a good target, like a convoy, all the mines nearby would converge on the target and blow it up.[1] There's also this small fence-jumping, tracked robot from 2009.[2] Landing is uncontrolled, but it can survive crash landings and run upside down, so that doesn't matter too much. [1] http://www.sandia.gov/LabNews/LN10-20-00/hop_story.html http://www.sandia.gov/LabNews/LN10-20-00/hop_story.html [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjANAebfs6Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjANAebfs6Q

tgb 10y ago

I'm honestly surprised that you're surprised - it's hard to judge what makes the problem difficult if you don't include landing. There's lots of ways to get something to 'jump' (like these toys [1]) that aren't too useful. This isn't meant to be a criticism of your work, but an explanation of the impression it made in me. If it had been presented as "here's a new approach to jumping with these advantages", I'd have been impressed. Billing it as "the most agile jumping robot ever" while not being able to land it is setting your audience up for disappointment. My touchstone for jumping robots is that Boston Dynamics robot that can jump onto a building, and then I saw yours needing safety nets to jump a meter - you just don't want to set me up for that comparison. On the other hand, your video did get me excited to see where you go in the next few years - I definitely do want to see chain jumps exectued, even in controlled evironments. [1] https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/2e/87/10/2e8710fe2ee3b60b262f9e4e66a4751d.jpg https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/2e/87/10/2e87...

DHaldane 10y ago
OK, I see where you're coming from. The sandflea is a very practical, application-driven platform, and our robot is just a simple scientific tool meant to test new ideas about jumping. We were interested in the science of the new modes of locomotion so there wasn't much value in developing the landing for this work. We'll try to stick the landing next time.
- tgb 10y ago
  That would certainly be fun to see! Make sure it ends up on HN again when you've got some more cool stuff to show us.
- jstrieb 10y ago
  That makes more sense; I, too originally read the post with a different type of robot in mind. After re-watching the video and re-reading the article (and of course reading these HN discussions), I'm appreciating Salto more for what it is: an excellent example of well-engineered biomimicry with a lot of potential for future robots.
the_duke 10y ago
Just for reference, here is a video of the mention Boston Dynamics robot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b4ZZQkcNEo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b4ZZQkcNEo Really cool.

chillingeffect 10y ago

by all means, please keep doing what you're doing. it's impressive work. > I'm honestly surprised about how much interest there has been in a landing controller. This is probably the most textbook example of hyperfocus I've ever seen since I was a teenager and kept jumping higher and higher until one day I hit my head on the ceiling!