Realizing the dream of two-legged, ambulatory robots has been hindered by the complexities of walking dynamics, which until recently were beyond the abilities of computers to understand. But progress has been made through projects such as Boston Dynamics’ PETMAN, a pair of steel and plastic legs tied to a system of power cables that is capable of walking on its own using the heel-to-toe motion favored by people. Boston Dynamics founder Marc Raibert notes that scientists originally thought that walking robots should be permanently stable, and early robots were designed to know precisely where each foot should land and calculate all possibilities beforehand. The PETMAN project is funded by the U.S. Army, which needs a machine that can model realistic human motions to test hazardous equipment. Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition researcher Jerry Pratt is impressed by PETMAN’s ability to move its legs in several directions rapidly. He has developed a bipedal robot called M2V2 that can stand on one foot and shift laterally using sensors in its legs. Chris Atkeson with Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute says that walking robots could be used to provide insights on why older people tend to fall and help develop new assistive methods.
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Tags: Robotics
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