10 ms·
Only millions? Amazing! To actually deliver a physical, one-of-a-kind, working vehicle of that scale & novel function, for low-digit millions, seems pretty imp
by gojomo 6y ago
Only millions? Amazing!
To actually deliver a physical, one-of-a-kind, working vehicle of that scale & novel function, for low-digit millions, seems pretty impressive to me - especially if the effort documented enough of their choices/discoveries/limitations to help inform later efforts.
- TaylorAlexander 6y agoMillions seems about right. If it took more than $999 million I’d be pretty surprised. Hydraulics are tricky but they’re not that tricky.
- andbberger 6y agoThe kinematics are the tricky part. Trajectory planning is still quite difficult today even with our speedy modern CPUs
- TaylorAlexander 6y agoTrajectory planning what? Actually solving the inverse kinematics of 3dof manipulators is trivial. I did so 20 years ago using a Basic Stamp microcontroller for my 18 servo hexapod. I was 15. Planning foot placement is a bit harder but I would say the compute heavy part today would be perception.
- andbberger 6y agoTrajectory planning for foot placement.
- TaylorAlexander 6y agoI think of “trajectory planning” as: you have a known target position and you have to figure out how to get there. That’s not hard with a 3dof manipulator. But figuring out where to place the feet, which I consider a perception problem, is very hard. But I think that’s what you’re talking about and I just use different terminology. That’s why I was confused. Sorry if I came off wrong.
- larkeith 6y ago$5m by 1985, with another $3.5m earmarked [1]. Accounting generously for inflation, that's $25m today [2]. It would be interesting to know what the price would look like if they tried the same thing today. [1] https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1985/11/4/the-pentagon-funds-a-walking-robot https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1985/11/4/the-pentagon-f... [2] https://www.inflationtool.com/us-dollar/1981-to-present-value?amount=8.5 https://www.inflationtool.com/us-dollar/1981-to-present-valu...
- opless 6y agoMantis by winchymatt perhaps? A two ton diesel powered hexapod. https://youtu.be/1h9Mw-s9mzI https://youtu.be/1h9Mw-s9mzI
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- melling 6y agoyeah, a single M1 Abrams tank costs over $4 million, and we have 9000 of them. DARPA R&D money always feels like money better spent than a lot of other military spending. We get future dividends, often civilian.
- Firehawke 6y agoAbsolutely this. With the culling of most corporate R&D groups over the last 20-30 years, DARPA pie-in-the-sky research projects seem to be one of the last real sources for investigating anything that can't be immediately and quickly monetized.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ghaff 6y agoHow much real research, as opposed to early-stage product development, has ever happened at corporations? We can easily name a few specific examples (Bell Labs, Xerox PARC) presumably because they weren't the norm. (And there were doubtless some others at companies that weren't as aligned with what's thought of as today's tech industry such as DuPont.)
- tasogare 6y agoHave a look at MSR.
- ghaff 6y agoWhat about them? They make nice gear. They've done some nice innovation around some of the gear they make. That seems different from pumping multi-millions of dollars into research that may never have direct commercial value--unless you're talking about a different MSR.
- pedrosorio 6y ago
- greendude29 6y agoI don't think the technology behind it was particularly new or novel. It was simply arranging known technology to a new application. Given the lack of research, but perhaps the high experimentation, millions make sense.
- Animats 6y agoIt was new in that it was computer controlled. General Electric had demonstrated a 4-legged walking truck in 1965.[1] Arms and legs were slaved to the operator's arms and legs. It was very hard to drive. Trying to do that with computer control in 1985 was worth trying. Building the prototype at full scale, not so much. If they'd gone through a few iterations starting with a dog sized version, it might have worked out better. But there was a political problem. DARPA funded a pony-sized legged walker in the late 1960s[2], and it was publicly shamed as a waste of taxpayer money by Sen. Proxmire. So DARPA went for one big enough to carry a real load. Early thinking about legged locomotion was all about gait and foot placement. It turns out that balance dominates foot placement, and slip control dominates balance once you get off the flat. Today, most of the problems have been solved, and there's still no market. Which is disappointing. [1] https://youtu.be/coNO9FpDb6E https://youtu.be/coNO9FpDb6E [2] http://cyberneticzoo.com/walking-machines/1968-phony-pony-frank-mcghee-american http://cyberneticzoo.com/walking-machines/1968-phony-pony-fr...
- jansan 6y agoColin Furze could probably do this for less than 50,000£, and it would even spit fire!
- ytjohn 6y agoI love that guy, and you're right. So many of his projects is him trying find a different way to locomote a flame thrower.
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoIt's amazing how much you can achieve with a relatively small team of experts. I also believe people have gone "blind" to how much a million is and what it can afford. I mean a million can employ a decent software developer for a decade, and a solo developer can achieve a lot in a decade. I've probably produced about a million LOC in that period in half a dozen languages. I was curious; the Manhattan Project cost $2 billion (in 1939) and employed 130,000 people (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project, first paragraph).