11 ms·

Boston Dynamics Unleashes Wildcat, the Sprinting Quadruped Robot

172 points by upwardbound 13y ago

usaphp 13y ago
Can someone explain me, why are they spending so much time on trying to make it run instead of just fitting it with wheels? What is the benefit of it having legs vs wheels? I must have missing something sorry...
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- vutekst 13y ago
  Legs can be better than wheels for rough terrain. Mules can go some places jeeps can't.
  - reddit_clone 13y ago
    Ha. Now we know why the Imperial army's huge lumbering ATATs have legs instead of wheels.
  - usaphp 13y ago
    But what about caterpillar? They can go literally on any terrain. Even on Mars :)
    - arm85 13y ago
      Have you seen where the european ibex goat can go on four legs?
      - forktheif 13y ago
        Seriously! Ibexes are insanely good climbers. Random example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmEPbA2R-s8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmEPbA2R-s8
        mkl 13y ago
        Insane is right: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT-Ywtf23ho https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT-Ywtf23ho
        JulianMorrison 13y ago
        Their parkour is superior.
  - 001sky 13y ago
    This is a good point, but consider: mules can also go places horses cannot. In order to take advandage of the properties of this level of terrain, you will need articulating ankles/"feet". Note that these robots lack this critical element of sophistication. It is the footwork of the mule which seperates it from the horse.
ihnorton 13y ago
It doesn't just sprint; the thing gallops. Like a horse. Also, as it warms up, it does a weird jitter-hop and walk-in-reverse thing that is just begging for a remix to an electronic beat. (Sometimes I miss Slashdot. This one deserves an 'overlords' reference).
whatfor 13y ago
Is this thing been developed to kill humans?
- krapp 13y ago
  Was the Jeep? It just seems to be a proof of concept for an agile quadrupedal machine. I see no reason to assume it's going to be used to kill people.
  - whatfor 13y ago
    To me it seems far from only a proof of concept, specially in light of who is financing it and the rest of Boston Dynamics' robots. As inventors, I would say it's high time we start to think about the consequences of our tech "innovations".
    - krapp 13y ago
      Yes but the US military already has armed robots. I could see this maybe being used as a transport but even that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be used to kill people. Though granted if the people it's transporting have guns that's a moot point.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
    - turing 13y ago
      DARPA also financed the Internet. I think we can expect similar public benefits to come out of this research one day.
      - whatfor 13y ago
        Excellent example. But we also failed to build the necessary safeguards to prevent using the Internet as a massive surveillance machine. When will we learn something from our past failures?
vapidResponse 13y ago
Time to protect rocket propelled grenades, recoilless rifles and H.E.A.T. ammunition under the 2nd amendment. The robot apocalypse is nigh. (...I'm only half joking)
- jonmrodriguez 13y ago
  Continuing the half-joke: A safer idea is for people to build EMPs, since they have much less potential to be used to hurt humans compared to the heavy weapons you mention. I don't know how effective it is, but I've heard that one way to get the high instantaneous power need for an EMP is to use a potato cannon to fire a very large cylindrical permanent magnet through a wire coiled thousands of times around the cannon barrel. I haven't seen any video proof of this idea though, so take it with a grain of salt.
chadwickthebold 13y ago
They test this across the street from my office. Pretty crazy when you actually see it sprint the length of a football field, turn around and run the length again. Then again, it's also pretty funny when it faceplants and one of the engineers runs over with a fire extinguisher to make sure it doesn't explode.
- krapp 13y ago
  I saw a video of ASIMO falling on some stairs once. As far as we've come with this it seems there's still a lot of engineering left to work out with anything not rolling on wheels.
  - turing 13y ago
    To be fair, ASIMO is not even in the same league as ATLAS or any of Boston Dynamics' other projects. I've always gotten the feeling that ASIMO is more of a press play by Honda.
- turing 13y ago
  Wow. And I thought it was cool seeing self-driving cars around Google's campus. Boston Dynamics must be one interesting place to work.
- jffry 13y ago
  One time, on my way to lunch at 200 Fifth Ave, I stopped at the top of the hill by their parking lot and chuckled as their LS3 robot tried and failed to stand up. Also, one of them seems to be working on a pulse jet engine as a side project. I heard the world's loudest vuvuzela, went over to check it out, and saw a guy with a rocket engine strapped down to a concrete divider looking at a laptop.
  - chadwickthebold 13y ago
    Yeah, for two months I thought wildcat was just a really, really loud weed-wacker that was used every single day.
clarkmoody 13y ago
I'm waiting for the demo of a robot placing accurate shots at full-auto with a standard issue rifle -- on multiple targets.
- mkramlich 13y ago
  so is the US military
- ihsw 13y ago
  -- while in motion. In all seriousness it was running a good 20kph in the video, I wouldn't be surprised if this thing was deployed alongside canine units. Perhaps even apprehending vehicles? The cheetah has great speed but its real power is it's turning ability: cars can go fast but they require a serious amount of space and time to reverse direction safely.
- jotm 13y ago
  Doesn't seem that hard to accomplish - all the tech is there, gyroscopic stabilizers, auto feed and trigger, targeting systems, etc. - it would all consume a lot of power, though...
  - smilekzs 13y ago
    ...all of which are more feasible on an MBT, or weapon station (which is robotic, by the way)
- SEJeff 13y ago
  Accurate gunners NEVER fire on fully auto. When I was the commander's gunner behind a .50 cal cruising in a humvee around Baghdad and (more often) Mosul, Iraq... You fire controlled 8-10 round bursts or 3-5 round bursts if you aren't trying to go nuts. Perfect aim and fully auto are mutually exclusive. That is why the M16A1, which was used in Vietnam as the standard issue rifle, was replaced with the no longer fully auto M16A2. The A2 has safe, fire, and 3 round burst. The fully auto selector was removed as soldiers just wasted a lot of ammo and burned up barrels.
  - 13y ago
NatW 13y ago
The updated Atlas may even be more-frightening: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD6Okylclb8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD6Okylclb8
joe_the_user 13y ago
The odd thing is how we keep seeing these impressive prototypes and yet we don't see the deployment of even the five-years-ago prototypes. It's interesting to think about the factors that go into this. I could imagine: * High unit cost * High maintenance cost, especially in remote locations. * It is only useful in remote locations where wheeled vehicles can't go. * It requires special training to operate. * It doesn't have enough intelligence to avoid obstacles by itself in the remote, rough locations it would otherwise be fit for. Other ideas?
- jotm 13y ago
  Yeah, I think it's pretty much down to the cost - humans are still cheaper and way more effective/flexible...
  - danbmil99 13y ago
    The fact is that for almost any "dangerous environment" one might suggest using robots for, there is a human who will do the same job for a few dollars extra per hour.
    - jotm 13y ago
      Except extraterrestrial objects - maybe BD will team up with SpaceX and send these robots to Mars :-)
- sytelus 13y ago
  My guess is that military is buying up all their tech. We usually hear these teasers designed to encourage decision makers to speed up the funding. It's like putting a gun on their head "if you don't buy this, we will sell to someone else". After the rounds of funding is over we hear silence. It is not unlike many other cool very promising research projects but they can be threatening if other countries get their hands on them. Their main page says... Organizations worldwide, from DARPA, the US Army, Navy and Marine Corps...
  - 13y ago
robomartin 13y ago
In a different thread there was an argument about the relative futility of some of today's robotics experiments [0]. As it is sometimes typical on HN, the poster with a message outside the "go team" cargo-cult mentality wasn't very welcome. I happen to think he had a very interesting point. And that point translates well into this thread. Why don't we see practical applications of all of these robotics experiments? The answer is very simple really: Most of them are relatively pointless and add very little to the robotics knowledge-base that will be needed to really move robotics forward into real-world applied robots. Think of something like robotics vacuum cleaners. Nothing whatsoever innovative about any of them. It's a wheeled platform that has been in use in hobby and research robotics since, well, forever. The '70's and '80's were full of robots with this basic platform. What changed? Electronics got better, batteries smaller, microprocessors more capable, manufacturing more efficient. What was retained and reused from prior research? Probably not much. I started in college with the goal of becoming a robotics engineer. An EE with specialization in robotics. It didn't take long for me to realize that the field wasn't as interesting and exciting as I made it out to be in my mind. The R2D2's and C3-PO's were nowhere to be found and were easily decades away from becoming reality. If I wanted to be in robotics I would end-up making industrial manipulators or things with motors that we would all pretend were robots. That's a pet peeve of mine. Battlebots had nothing whatsoever to do with robotics. It was about a bunch of remote controlled machines. Not robots. I digress. The point is that I was really excited about the field until I realized what I wanted to do would have to wait 50 or 100 years. I wanted to work on Commander Data, not a mindless pick-and-place machine. And so I begun to dissect things and think about what it would take to get there. Do we learn anything by making humanoid-looking little robots out of RC servos? I built a couple. It's an utter waste of time. Nothing whatsoever of value other than to pretend we built a humanoid. Don't get me wrong, it's a great hobby and lots of fun for the kids to learn, but it is far, far away from anything even remotely useful. In my opinion these are the areas that need a quantum leap in development before robots like Wildcat can become useful and relevant outside the lab: ARTIFICIAL MUSCLES This is huge. Motors, gears, springs, pistons and bladders just don't cut it. We need a step change in the performance and capabilities of what we use to do the job of biological muscles. Machines like Wildcat can't operate for days at a time. They use internal combustion engines to power pumps and hydraulic or pneumatic end-effectors to actuate joints. This is lousy. Very little can be learned from trying to operate such machines. You end-up with things like Asimo that walk like they are taking a dump because it is nearly impossible to implement true dynamic gaits because we either can't implement enough degrees of freedom or joint actuation simply isn't up to par. Artificial muscles that perform well and are energy efficient would revolutionize the field. ENERGY STORAGE Thankfully this is something robotics shares with electric cars. We need to do much better than current LiPo cells allow in terms of volumetric power density (at the very least). ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE + CONTROL SYSTEMS This is a field that has seen advances but is nowhere near where it needs to be. I can teach a five year old kid how to sort and fold a pile of clothes without much effort (other than maintaining his or her attention). It would be very hard to do the same with the AI we have mastered to date. I am talking about having a couple of robot arms and a camera presented with a random pile of clothes and having those clothes sorted and properly folded as a human would. No special mechanics, suction mechanisms or anything like that. PROCESSING / NEURAL COMPUTING The AI+CONTROL field ultimately needs far more advanced and energy efficient processing architectures than are commonly available today. Stuffing a robot with a powerful Linux PC provides nowhere near the processing bandwidth needed to perform at a level comparable to a human child. I am not sure what form this step improvement in computing will take, but we need it. PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES / DEVELOPMENT AND SIMULATION TOOLS We are in the dark ages. We need a serious paradigm shift in the way we program computers if we are ever going to even approach something that can compare to the fictional C3-PO or Commander Data ideas. If you want to contribute to robotics your time and efforts would be far better spent on the above (I am sure there are other areas I have not listed) rather than making little remote-controlled gyro-actuated cubes that link to each other via magnets. I don't know what can be learned from that other than making remote-controlled gyro-actuated little cubes that link together via magnets. Cool toy. Useless for the advancement of robotics. It's almost like spending a lot of time playing chess: You become better at playing chess, a narrow skill, and virtually nothing you do can be translated or reused for other tasks outside of chess. Grandmasters are not genius thinkers, they are simply great chess players and that's it. Master little cubes with gyros and that's all you've mastered. I have two German Shepherd dogs. I have trained both of them to search for objects I hide anywhere in the house. I show them the object, I let them smell it and then hide the object while they wait in a "sit-stay" well out of sight. Sometimes I'll hide the object deep in a drawer inside a closet in an upstairs bedroom while they wait in the garage with the door closed. These dogs are amazing to watch. They always find what I showed them. Every so often they need a little help (and they ask for it), most of the time they do it on their own. Think about all that is required for an animal to do this spanning a range of capabilities from cognition, perception, sensing, navigation, planning, communications and more. There is no way a bunch of little blocks or a gasoline-hydraulic-powered machine is helping us advance towards even something as simple, in terms of biological beings, as finding an hidden object using smell. A better place to spend money and resources is in the areas I highlighted above and others I did not mention. Once you "ace" the above, the process of designing and fabricating a mechanical frame with the required capabilities should be an almost academic exercise for any engineer with a moderate range of experience in the electromechanical fields. Not to minimize Boston Dynamic, but I really think a lot of what they and others are doing is simply burning tax money for no good reason. Well, there is a good reason. The government folks who shovel out the money are easily impressed by this stuff. Nothing really advances but it is impressive as hell. Who knows how much money was burned on the GE walker in the 1960's [1]. I don't know of anything that came out of that project and is in use today. If I gave any reasonably capable team of engineers a few million dollars to play --without a requirement to actually deliver something that works in the real world-- they could build similarly capable machines. There's nothing special about these systems other than they are impressive to the untrained eye. General Electric built quadrupeds in 1968 [1]. The only reason they didn't perform like the Boston Dynamics rigs is that they did not have access to better computing platforms, sensors and electronics. There is nothing in the Boston Dynamics machines in terms of mechanics or hydraulics that was not available or could not be implemented in 1968. Just look at the video [2] (got to love the sound effects). This machine, all by itself, proves my point about the futility of some of this research. They all put the cart in front of the horse. The GE machine needed better effectors, sensors, energy storage, AI and control. The machine shows the amazing mechanical complexity that was attainable in 1968. Remember, no Solidworks, no microprocessors, no FPGA's, no Linux, just a dude pulling levers. Amazing stuff. We are simply focusing on and throwing money at the wrong things. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6495440 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6495440 [1] http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/project.archive/Image.Archive/other.robots/Mosher.GE.walking.truck.jpg http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/project.archive/Image.Archive... [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMGCFLEYakM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMGCFLEYakM EDIT: Just came across this, which is really cool (1957): http://cyberneticzoo.com/?p=8392 http://cyberneticzoo.com/?p=8392
lispm 13y ago
Looks like it is hard to stop the military-industrial complex. Don't say you have not been warned.
JDDunn9 13y ago
This doesn't seem like it will do much to advance robotics in the private sector (wheels are fine). I'm more excited to see more results from the DARPA arm program (http://www.gizmag.com/irobot-darpa-autonomous-robotic-manipulation-program/27350/ http://www.gizmag.com/irobot-darpa-autonomous-robotic-manipu...) and the Velo gripper (https://willowgarage.com/velo2g https://willowgarage.com/velo2g).
- MechSkep 13y ago
  (wheels are fine) I disagree with this. Try constraining yourself to a wheelchair for a week or so, and then tell me nothing can be gained from a good set of legs.
  - JDDunn9 13y ago
    Most robots would be confined to one store/space. Especially considering legs double the cost, likelihood of failing, complexity, etc.
    - DasIch 13y ago
      I doubt that applies to the robots the military would like to have.
wyclif 13y ago
It's only a matter of time until one of these things kills a person.
- VladRussian2 13y ago
  the flying versions of these things are already killing. Or do you mean a robot/drone killing at their own will?
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
001sky 13y ago
Interesting how they use a petrol engine.
- joelthelion 13y ago
  I wonder if the engine is used to power an electrical generator, or if the mechanical energy is used directly?
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - tlb 13y ago
    It mainly runs a hydraulic pump.
  - TheLoneWolfling 13y ago
    Based on the looks, both. Hydraulic pump for the legs + generator for the electronics.
johnzim 13y ago
Can't wait till Sean Vanaman finds out about this one...
- DoggettCK 13y ago
  Somewhere in San Francisco, Jake Rodkin is huddled, weeping under a bed.
JulianMorrison 13y ago
I wonder if Boston Dynamics understands how intensely viscerally creepy their prototypes are.
- DanBC 13y ago
  I wonder if they purposely design that in. Imagine one of those, with a gun, chasing you.
  - JulianMorrison 13y ago
    Or just a high explosive charge. Slamhound?
bostonpete 13y ago
Notice that there are no jokers trying to kick this thing over in the video. Wildcat is much less forgiving than Big Dog. Three engineers have already been mauled by it...
MarcusBrutus 13y ago
I am not convinced that that's the way to go. I know nothing about robotics but it seems to me that research into a chimp-donkey hybrid might have more potential for success and also for producing lasting results and solve real, elementary problems that will be relevant for future generations (also with a better chance for civilian / medical applications). The intelligence of a primate to allow it to obey simple commands and follow his master and the agility, biological power source and millions of years of evolution of a donkey or some other sturdy quadruped that can negotiate rough terrain. Not to mention that with a biological "robot" you also have a very low cost of producing subsequent units if you manage to create a non-sterile hybrid.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
stock_toaster 13y ago
I am rooting for a LandStrider model.

172 points by upwardbound 13y ago

Can someone explain me, why are they spending so much time on trying to make it run instead of just fitting it with wheels? What is the benefit of it having legs vs wheels? I must have missing something sorry...

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
vutekst 13y ago
Legs can be better than wheels for rough terrain. Mules can go some places jeeps can't.
- reddit_clone 13y ago
  Ha. Now we know why the Imperial army's huge lumbering ATATs have legs instead of wheels.
- usaphp 13y ago
  But what about caterpillar? They can go literally on any terrain. Even on Mars :)
  - arm85 13y ago
    Have you seen where the european ibex goat can go on four legs?
    - forktheif 13y ago
      Seriously! Ibexes are insanely good climbers. Random example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmEPbA2R-s8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmEPbA2R-s8
      - mkl 13y ago
        Insane is right: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT-Ywtf23ho https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT-Ywtf23ho
        JulianMorrison 13y ago
        Their parkour is superior.
- 001sky 13y ago
  This is a good point, but consider: mules can also go places horses cannot. In order to take advandage of the properties of this level of terrain, you will need articulating ankles/"feet". Note that these robots lack this critical element of sophistication. It is the footwork of the mule which seperates it from the horse.

ihnorton 13y ago

It doesn't just sprint; the thing gallops. Like a horse. Also, as it warms up, it does a weird jitter-hop and walk-in-reverse thing that is just begging for a remix to an electronic beat. (Sometimes I miss Slashdot. This one deserves an 'overlords' reference).

whatfor 13y ago

Is this thing been developed to kill humans?

krapp 13y ago
Was the Jeep? It just seems to be a proof of concept for an agile quadrupedal machine. I see no reason to assume it's going to be used to kill people.
- whatfor 13y ago
  To me it seems far from only a proof of concept, specially in light of who is financing it and the rest of Boston Dynamics' robots. As inventors, I would say it's high time we start to think about the consequences of our tech "innovations".
  - krapp 13y ago
    Yes but the US military already has armed robots. I could see this maybe being used as a transport but even that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be used to kill people. Though granted if the people it's transporting have guns that's a moot point.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
  - turing 13y ago
    DARPA also financed the Internet. I think we can expect similar public benefits to come out of this research one day.
    - whatfor 13y ago
      Excellent example. But we also failed to build the necessary safeguards to prevent using the Internet as a massive surveillance machine. When will we learn something from our past failures?

vapidResponse 13y ago

Time to protect rocket propelled grenades, recoilless rifles and H.E.A.T. ammunition under the 2nd amendment. The robot apocalypse is nigh. (...I'm only half joking)

jonmrodriguez 13y ago
Continuing the half-joke: A safer idea is for people to build EMPs, since they have much less potential to be used to hurt humans compared to the heavy weapons you mention. I don't know how effective it is, but I've heard that one way to get the high instantaneous power need for an EMP is to use a potato cannon to fire a very large cylindrical permanent magnet through a wire coiled thousands of times around the cannon barrel. I haven't seen any video proof of this idea though, so take it with a grain of salt.

chadwickthebold 13y ago

They test this across the street from my office. Pretty crazy when you actually see it sprint the length of a football field, turn around and run the length again. Then again, it's also pretty funny when it faceplants and one of the engineers runs over with a fire extinguisher to make sure it doesn't explode.

krapp 13y ago
I saw a video of ASIMO falling on some stairs once. As far as we've come with this it seems there's still a lot of engineering left to work out with anything not rolling on wheels.
- turing 13y ago
  To be fair, ASIMO is not even in the same league as ATLAS or any of Boston Dynamics' other projects. I've always gotten the feeling that ASIMO is more of a press play by Honda.
turing 13y ago
Wow. And I thought it was cool seeing self-driving cars around Google's campus. Boston Dynamics must be one interesting place to work.
jffry 13y ago
One time, on my way to lunch at 200 Fifth Ave, I stopped at the top of the hill by their parking lot and chuckled as their LS3 robot tried and failed to stand up. Also, one of them seems to be working on a pulse jet engine as a side project. I heard the world's loudest vuvuzela, went over to check it out, and saw a guy with a rocket engine strapped down to a concrete divider looking at a laptop.
- chadwickthebold 13y ago
  Yeah, for two months I thought wildcat was just a really, really loud weed-wacker that was used every single day.

clarkmoody 13y ago

I'm waiting for the demo of a robot placing accurate shots at full-auto with a standard issue rifle -- on multiple targets.

mkramlich 13y ago
so is the US military
ihsw 13y ago
-- while in motion. In all seriousness it was running a good 20kph in the video, I wouldn't be surprised if this thing was deployed alongside canine units. Perhaps even apprehending vehicles? The cheetah has great speed but its real power is it's turning ability: cars can go fast but they require a serious amount of space and time to reverse direction safely.
jotm 13y ago
Doesn't seem that hard to accomplish - all the tech is there, gyroscopic stabilizers, auto feed and trigger, targeting systems, etc. - it would all consume a lot of power, though...
- smilekzs 13y ago
  ...all of which are more feasible on an MBT, or weapon station (which is robotic, by the way)
SEJeff 13y ago
Accurate gunners NEVER fire on fully auto. When I was the commander's gunner behind a .50 cal cruising in a humvee around Baghdad and (more often) Mosul, Iraq... You fire controlled 8-10 round bursts or 3-5 round bursts if you aren't trying to go nuts. Perfect aim and fully auto are mutually exclusive. That is why the M16A1, which was used in Vietnam as the standard issue rifle, was replaced with the no longer fully auto M16A2. The A2 has safe, fire, and 3 round burst. The fully auto selector was removed as soldiers just wasted a lot of ammo and burned up barrels.
- 13y ago

NatW 13y ago

The updated Atlas may even be more-frightening: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD6Okylclb8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD6Okylclb8

joe_the_user 13y ago

The odd thing is how we keep seeing these impressive prototypes and yet we don't see the deployment of even the five-years-ago prototypes. It's interesting to think about the factors that go into this. I could imagine: * High unit cost * High maintenance cost, especially in remote locations. * It is only useful in remote locations where wheeled vehicles can't go. * It requires special training to operate. * It doesn't have enough intelligence to avoid obstacles by itself in the remote, rough locations it would otherwise be fit for. Other ideas?

jotm 13y ago
Yeah, I think it's pretty much down to the cost - humans are still cheaper and way more effective/flexible...
- danbmil99 13y ago
  The fact is that for almost any "dangerous environment" one might suggest using robots for, there is a human who will do the same job for a few dollars extra per hour.
  - jotm 13y ago
    Except extraterrestrial objects - maybe BD will team up with SpaceX and send these robots to Mars :-)
sytelus 13y ago
My guess is that military is buying up all their tech. We usually hear these teasers designed to encourage decision makers to speed up the funding. It's like putting a gun on their head "if you don't buy this, we will sell to someone else". After the rounds of funding is over we hear silence. It is not unlike many other cool very promising research projects but they can be threatening if other countries get their hands on them. Their main page says... Organizations worldwide, from DARPA, the US Army, Navy and Marine Corps...
- 13y ago

robomartin 13y ago

In a different thread there was an argument about the relative futility of some of today's robotics experiments [0]. As it is sometimes typical on HN, the poster with a message outside the "go team" cargo-cult mentality wasn't very welcome. I happen to think he had a very interesting point. And that point translates well into this thread. Why don't we see practical applications of all of these robotics experiments? The answer is very simple really: Most of them are relatively pointless and add very little to the robotics knowledge-base that will be needed to really move robotics forward into real-world applied robots. Think of something like robotics vacuum cleaners. Nothing whatsoever innovative about any of them. It's a wheeled platform that has been in use in hobby and research robotics since, well, forever. The '70's and '80's were full of robots with this basic platform. What changed? Electronics got better, batteries smaller, microprocessors more capable, manufacturing more efficient. What was retained and reused from prior research? Probably not much. I started in college with the goal of becoming a robotics engineer. An EE with specialization in robotics. It didn't take long for me to realize that the field wasn't as interesting and exciting as I made it out to be in my mind. The R2D2's and C3-PO's were nowhere to be found and were easily decades away from becoming reality. If I wanted to be in robotics I would end-up making industrial manipulators or things with motors that we would all pretend were robots. That's a pet peeve of mine. Battlebots had nothing whatsoever to do with robotics. It was about a bunch of remote controlled machines. Not robots. I digress. The point is that I was really excited about the field until I realized what I wanted to do would have to wait 50 or 100 years. I wanted to work on Commander Data, not a mindless pick-and-place machine. And so I begun to dissect things and think about what it would take to get there. Do we learn anything by making humanoid-looking little robots out of RC servos? I built a couple. It's an utter waste of time. Nothing whatsoever of value other than to pretend we built a humanoid. Don't get me wrong, it's a great hobby and lots of fun for the kids to learn, but it is far, far away from anything even remotely useful. In my opinion these are the areas that need a quantum leap in development before robots like Wildcat can become useful and relevant outside the lab: ARTIFICIAL MUSCLES This is huge. Motors, gears, springs, pistons and bladders just don't cut it. We need a step change in the performance and capabilities of what we use to do the job of biological muscles. Machines like Wildcat can't operate for days at a time. They use internal combustion engines to power pumps and hydraulic or pneumatic end-effectors to actuate joints. This is lousy. Very little can be learned from trying to operate such machines. You end-up with things like Asimo that walk like they are taking a dump because it is nearly impossible to implement true dynamic gaits because we either can't implement enough degrees of freedom or joint actuation simply isn't up to par. Artificial muscles that perform well and are energy efficient would revolutionize the field. ENERGY STORAGE Thankfully this is something robotics shares with electric cars. We need to do much better than current LiPo cells allow in terms of volumetric power density (at the very least). ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE + CONTROL SYSTEMS This is a field that has seen advances but is nowhere near where it needs to be. I can teach a five year old kid how to sort and fold a pile of clothes without much effort (other than maintaining his or her attention). It would be very hard to do the same with the AI we have mastered to date. I am talking about having a couple of robot arms and a camera presented with a random pile of clothes and having those clothes sorted and properly folded as a human would. No special mechanics, suction mechanisms or anything like that. PROCESSING / NEURAL COMPUTING The AI+CONTROL field ultimately needs far more advanced and energy efficient processing architectures than are commonly available today. Stuffing a robot with a powerful Linux PC provides nowhere near the processing bandwidth needed to perform at a level comparable to a human child. I am not sure what form this step improvement in computing will take, but we need it. PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES / DEVELOPMENT AND SIMULATION TOOLS We are in the dark ages. We need a serious paradigm shift in the way we program computers if we are ever going to even approach something that can compare to the fictional C3-PO or Commander Data ideas. If you want to contribute to robotics your time and efforts would be far better spent on the above (I am sure there are other areas I have not listed) rather than making little remote-controlled gyro-actuated cubes that link to each other via magnets. I don't know what can be learned from that other than making remote-controlled gyro-actuated little cubes that link together via magnets. Cool toy. Useless for the advancement of robotics. It's almost like spending a lot of time playing chess: You become better at playing chess, a narrow skill, and virtually nothing you do can be translated or reused for other tasks outside of chess. Grandmasters are not genius thinkers, they are simply great chess players and that's it. Master little cubes with gyros and that's all you've mastered. I have two German Shepherd dogs. I have trained both of them to search for objects I hide anywhere in the house. I show them the object, I let them smell it and then hide the object while they wait in a "sit-stay" well out of sight. Sometimes I'll hide the object deep in a drawer inside a closet in an upstairs bedroom while they wait in the garage with the door closed. These dogs are amazing to watch. They always find what I showed them. Every so often they need a little help (and they ask for it), most of the time they do it on their own. Think about all that is required for an animal to do this spanning a range of capabilities from cognition, perception, sensing, navigation, planning, communications and more. There is no way a bunch of little blocks or a gasoline-hydraulic-powered machine is helping us advance towards even something as simple, in terms of biological beings, as finding an hidden object using smell. A better place to spend money and resources is in the areas I highlighted above and others I did not mention. Once you "ace" the above, the process of designing and fabricating a mechanical frame with the required capabilities should be an almost academic exercise for any engineer with a moderate range of experience in the electromechanical fields. Not to minimize Boston Dynamic, but I really think a lot of what they and others are doing is simply burning tax money for no good reason. Well, there is a good reason. The government folks who shovel out the money are easily impressed by this stuff. Nothing really advances but it is impressive as hell. Who knows how much money was burned on the GE walker in the 1960's [1]. I don't know of anything that came out of that project and is in use today. If I gave any reasonably capable team of engineers a few million dollars to play --without a requirement to actually deliver something that works in the real world-- they could build similarly capable machines. There's nothing special about these systems other than they are impressive to the untrained eye. General Electric built quadrupeds in 1968 [1]. The only reason they didn't perform like the Boston Dynamics rigs is that they did not have access to better computing platforms, sensors and electronics. There is nothing in the Boston Dynamics machines in terms of mechanics or hydraulics that was not available or could not be implemented in 1968. Just look at the video [2] (got to love the sound effects). This machine, all by itself, proves my point about the futility of some of this research. They all put the cart in front of the horse. The GE machine needed better effectors, sensors, energy storage, AI and control. The machine shows the amazing mechanical complexity that was attainable in 1968. Remember, no Solidworks, no microprocessors, no FPGA's, no Linux, just a dude pulling levers. Amazing stuff. We are simply focusing on and throwing money at the wrong things. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6495440 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6495440 [1] http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/project.archive/Image.Archive/other.robots/Mosher.GE.walking.truck.jpg http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/project.archive/Image.Archive... [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMGCFLEYakM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMGCFLEYakM EDIT: Just came across this, which is really cool (1957): http://cyberneticzoo.com/?p=8392 http://cyberneticzoo.com/?p=8392

lispm 13y ago

Looks like it is hard to stop the military-industrial complex. Don't say you have not been warned.

JDDunn9 13y ago

This doesn't seem like it will do much to advance robotics in the private sector (wheels are fine). I'm more excited to see more results from the DARPA arm program (http://www.gizmag.com/irobot-darpa-autonomous-robotic-manipulation-program/27350/ http://www.gizmag.com/irobot-darpa-autonomous-robotic-manipu...) and the Velo gripper (https://willowgarage.com/velo2g https://willowgarage.com/velo2g).

MechSkep 13y ago
(wheels are fine) I disagree with this. Try constraining yourself to a wheelchair for a week or so, and then tell me nothing can be gained from a good set of legs.
- JDDunn9 13y ago
  Most robots would be confined to one store/space. Especially considering legs double the cost, likelihood of failing, complexity, etc.
  - DasIch 13y ago
    I doubt that applies to the robots the military would like to have.

wyclif 13y ago

It's only a matter of time until one of these things kills a person.

VladRussian2 13y ago
the flying versions of these things are already killing. Or do you mean a robot/drone killing at their own will?

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

001sky 13y ago

Interesting how they use a petrol engine.

joelthelion 13y ago
I wonder if the engine is used to power an electrical generator, or if the mechanical energy is used directly?
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- tlb 13y ago
  It mainly runs a hydraulic pump.
- TheLoneWolfling 13y ago
  Based on the looks, both. Hydraulic pump for the legs + generator for the electronics.

johnzim 13y ago

Can't wait till Sean Vanaman finds out about this one...

DoggettCK 13y ago
Somewhere in San Francisco, Jake Rodkin is huddled, weeping under a bed.

JulianMorrison 13y ago

I wonder if Boston Dynamics understands how intensely viscerally creepy their prototypes are.

DanBC 13y ago
I wonder if they purposely design that in. Imagine one of those, with a gun, chasing you.
- JulianMorrison 13y ago
  Or just a high explosive charge. Slamhound?

bostonpete 13y ago

Notice that there are no jokers trying to kick this thing over in the video. Wildcat is much less forgiving than Big Dog. Three engineers have already been mauled by it...

MarcusBrutus 13y ago

I am not convinced that that's the way to go. I know nothing about robotics but it seems to me that research into a chimp-donkey hybrid might have more potential for success and also for producing lasting results and solve real, elementary problems that will be relevant for future generations (also with a better chance for civilian / medical applications). The intelligence of a primate to allow it to obey simple commands and follow his master and the agility, biological power source and millions of years of evolution of a donkey or some other sturdy quadruped that can negotiate rough terrain. Not to mention that with a biological "robot" you also have a very low cost of producing subsequent units if you manage to create a non-sterile hybrid.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

stock_toaster 13y ago

I am rooting for a LandStrider model.