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One day my dad spotted me playing Mech Warrior, and asked: "Why bipedal war machines? That is stupid, just push them over and they now are useless." After tha

by speeder 13y ago

One day my dad spotted me playing Mech Warrior, and asked: "Why bipedal war machines? That is stupid, just push them over and they now are useless." After that, I never figured why someone would build a bipedal war machine, even though I still have my nerdgasms watching all the mecha anime, movies and games... Anyone has a idea of why the hell someone would build a bipedal war machine?

DanBC 13y ago
> Anyone has a idea of why the hell someone would build a bipedal war machine? People get confused operating other body-forms, and when strapped into a waldo style remote rig they need something close to human for ease of use?
incision 13y ago
>Anyone has a idea of why the hell someone would build a bipedal war machine? Off the top of my head... 1.) I'd have think there's something to bipedal locomotion considering the evolutionary success it has had. 2.) We're bipedal. As long as pilots we'd recognize as human are involved, having an analog to the kind of movement they've necessarily trained a lifetime for seems sensible.
- NegativeK 13y ago
  What are you using to define evolutionary success? Most pedal species aren't bipedal, and the more populous species don't even have legs.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  Evolution does not necessarily always find the best solution. It can get stuck in local optima: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotating_locomotion_in_living_systems#Evolutionary_constraints http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotating_locomotion_in_living_s...
krapp 13y ago
That is stupid, just push them over and they now are useless. That depends entirely on whether said machines can right themselves after being tipped over. But, the way I see it, human cities and human technology are made for our bipedal forms, two legs and hands with five fingers and such. Having a robot match that form makes it easier to exploit urban terrain and implements in the environment. I mean, which would you theoretically rather have, a robot that is a vehicle, or a robot that can operate any vehicle it comes across?
stevenrace 13y ago
Perhaps it's worth noting that Boston Dynamics' earlier 'BigDog' robots were not bipedal and apparently built like a robotic pack mule. Bipedal examples may have uses as human analogs for misdirection in war, field testing testing equipment such as hazmat suits/armor, or for 'live fire' training exercises.
jlgreco 13y ago
Perhaps less important for war machines (particularly giant ones): the world that we have built for ourselves is built for bipeds. (ADA required renovations notwithstanding)
adventured 13y ago
That assumes the robots won't be radically superior at balancing than humans are; they will be. It also assumes you can push one over to begin with; you won't easily be able to. They'll be able to withstand far more force against them than a human can before falling over, and they'll have a nearly perfectly calibrated response to achieve rapid re-balancing. As to whether it's ideal (versus whether it'll work), that's a very good question. Perhaps if you can actually make it work very effectively, it's 1) maybe (?) cheaper than having three legs, 2) more agile than a tank tread style and 3) easily navigates in/around and uses human things. Clearly in the future there will be a plethora of robotic war machine styles for different purposes, for the same reason we use different weapons for different purposes.
methehack 13y ago
Because it's creepiest?
eli_gottlieb 13y ago
No, octopedal is plainly better -- especially given people's fears of spiders.
seanlinmt 13y ago
Hands? Being able to use tools like us humans would clearly be an advantage.
SiVal 13y ago
If you find someone who has built a bipedal war machine, you should ask them. In the meantime, these machines were designed for disaster recovery. The author of the article is imagining what an army of them would look like on a battlefield but states pretty clearly that that's not what these are being designed for. If I were designing robots for battle, I would probably make them something like armed jackrabbits with wings designed to attack in swarms.
robotresearcher 13y ago
Pretty much all combat soldiers in history have been bipedal. "Just push them over" is not a great plan against the US Marine Corps, and probably wasn't great against a Roman legion.

by speeder 13y ago

DanBC 13y ago

> Anyone has a idea of why the hell someone would build a bipedal war machine? People get confused operating other body-forms, and when strapped into a waldo style remote rig they need something close to human for ease of use?

incision 13y ago

>Anyone has a idea of why the hell someone would build a bipedal war machine? Off the top of my head... 1.) I'd have think there's something to bipedal locomotion considering the evolutionary success it has had. 2.) We're bipedal. As long as pilots we'd recognize as human are involved, having an analog to the kind of movement they've necessarily trained a lifetime for seems sensible.

NegativeK 13y ago
What are you using to define evolutionary success? Most pedal species aren't bipedal, and the more populous species don't even have legs.
jlgreco 13y ago
Evolution does not necessarily always find the best solution. It can get stuck in local optima: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotating_locomotion_in_living_systems#Evolutionary_constraints http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotating_locomotion_in_living_s...

krapp 13y ago

That is stupid, just push them over and they now are useless. That depends entirely on whether said machines can right themselves after being tipped over. But, the way I see it, human cities and human technology are made for our bipedal forms, two legs and hands with five fingers and such. Having a robot match that form makes it easier to exploit urban terrain and implements in the environment. I mean, which would you theoretically rather have, a robot that is a vehicle, or a robot that can operate any vehicle it comes across?

stevenrace 13y ago

Perhaps it's worth noting that Boston Dynamics' earlier 'BigDog' robots were not bipedal and apparently built like a robotic pack mule. Bipedal examples may have uses as human analogs for misdirection in war, field testing testing equipment such as hazmat suits/armor, or for 'live fire' training exercises.

jlgreco 13y ago

Perhaps less important for war machines (particularly giant ones): the world that we have built for ourselves is built for bipeds. (ADA required renovations notwithstanding)

adventured 13y ago

That assumes the robots won't be radically superior at balancing than humans are; they will be. It also assumes you can push one over to begin with; you won't easily be able to. They'll be able to withstand far more force against them than a human can before falling over, and they'll have a nearly perfectly calibrated response to achieve rapid re-balancing. As to whether it's ideal (versus whether it'll work), that's a very good question. Perhaps if you can actually make it work very effectively, it's 1) maybe (?) cheaper than having three legs, 2) more agile than a tank tread style and 3) easily navigates in/around and uses human things. Clearly in the future there will be a plethora of robotic war machine styles for different purposes, for the same reason we use different weapons for different purposes.

methehack 13y ago

Because it's creepiest?

eli_gottlieb 13y ago

No, octopedal is plainly better -- especially given people's fears of spiders.

seanlinmt 13y ago

Hands? Being able to use tools like us humans would clearly be an advantage.

SiVal 13y ago

If you find someone who has built a bipedal war machine, you should ask them. In the meantime, these machines were designed for disaster recovery. The author of the article is imagining what an army of them would look like on a battlefield but states pretty clearly that that's not what these are being designed for. If I were designing robots for battle, I would probably make them something like armed jackrabbits with wings designed to attack in swarms.

robotresearcher 13y ago

Pretty much all combat soldiers in history have been bipedal. "Just push them over" is not a great plan against the US Marine Corps, and probably wasn't great against a Roman legion.