Rare Desert Walking Robot: Mojave or Bust

An anonymous reader writes "Robust walking robots are still surprisingly rare. The Astrobiology Magazine is reporting today on the German-American Scorpion Project to conquer 25 miles of targeted navigation into the Mojave Desert and back autonomously. The eight-legged robot is triple-jointed and must travel by day (solar-batteries) for two-weeks alone without human intervention. Because it's a scorpion, the camera is in the tail."

Comments

What the heck did they build that out of?

[KillerBob]

Size: 450x200x300 (LxWxH cm)
Weight: 3.5-5 kg (incl. battery)

A 10lb robot that's 4.5m long, 2m wide, and 3m high?

Re:What the heck did they build that out of?

[moonbender]

I'm not sure, but perhabs the article wrote cm when they meant mm. That'd make more sense.

Hmm interesting

[Playboy3k]

But can it attack humans and hide in holes?

DARPA

[Ashish Kulkarni]

hmm...just a curiosity, but I know that DARPA is sponsoring lots of biometric/robotic related research. Are the results of the research freely available? I mean, can we see what has been the results of such research? The current HCI is way too outdated, and I think it may be obsolete in a few years.....

cm is misprint

[tanveer1979]

This is mm, ie half a meter long

Re:But what if?

[tanveer1979]

what if it runs into matilda or any other robot from robot wars .

No problem, it will behave like marvin and all the hostilities will die of depression ;-)

Hmm...

[AndroidCat]

Great until some Jawas jump out and capture it and it gets sold to a moisture farmer...

Nice movies of this thing in action

[toggleflipflop]

Hello All,

Check out this URL to see how the scorpion behaves in real-world situations:

Pretty neat.

greetings,
Tom

8 leggs really needed?

[automag_6]

It seems to me that even over very uneven terrain, that 6 legs should do the job nicely. I mean, 3 legs should be plenty enough for walking over level surfaces. Sure, it can be done with 2, but the benefits of the third are obvious. With the fourth, all of a sudden 3 can stabilise the creature/contraption while the 4th is in motion. With the 5th, you can have 2 moving at the same time, and with 6th, well, you can go hog wild with the movement over even difficult terrain.

I just fail to see the benefit of 8 legs, especially considering all the work that they apear to have claimed to do minimizing enegery consumption, spoken about here
http://ais.gmd.de/BAR/SCORPION/simulation.htm

Re:8 leggs really needed?

[Quixote]

Yah, but it is a "scorpion"; if they had put 6 legs on it people would be complaining "but scorpions have 8 legs!". What if Mother Nature sues you under the DMCA??

Re:8 leggs really needed?

[BenCaxton]

After watching the videos of this thing moving, it appears to form a stable posture with some of it's legs (at least 3), and then move the other ones to find it's next stable posture. On uneven ground the extra legs will help it find a stable stance at any given time. I'm not really too familiar with a lot of legged robots, but it's pretty common to have 6 or 8 legs. You can probably find a lot of different papers online about the different gaits that these things use.

On another note, evolution minimizes energy use, and it gave the scorpion 8 legs.

Ben

Re:8 leggs really needed?

[Dale Dunn]

From watching the videos, it appears that this thing does not have the sophistication to be stable on 6 legs in a rough environment. It's just moving it's legs in a crawl forward motion, and it doesn;t know if its putting a foot in a hole or banging it on a rock, or actually making progress. I build machines that could do that out of Legos when I was a kid. Less sophisticated, but much the same result.

Rare robots?

[NaveWeiss]

Well, we must do anything to prevent them from getting extinct! Donate now! We accept visa and mastercard.

Re:Rare robots?

[deprecated]

Yes, it is stupid to refer to a prototype as rare.

Re:8 legs really needed?

[AndroidCat]

It is a rugged environment. Perhaps they planned in case one or more legs gets gunked up? (Good software if it can cope losing random legs.)

On Mars mission, it's hell trying to get a repairman in, especially on weekends! (And the rates they charge!)

Perhaps it has redundant legs

[grahamsz]

In true slashdot style i've not read the article, but if it has 8 legs then it can probably afford to loose half of them and still be able to move.

I year or so back I read about mechanisms for intelligently correcting for a broken leg, animals in nature do it pretty well... stand up anyone who's ever pulled the legs off a spider :)

Re:8 legs really needed?

[AndroidCat]

From the picture in the article, it doesn't exactly look very sturdy -- certainly not for a dusty, gritty environment. Maybe they want it fail in order to learn? :^)

What about sandstorms and sinking?

[JohnnyBigodes]

Well, I've looked at the robot, but I still see two problems, the first one being sandstorms (which I don't know if they actually exist in the Mojave desert), turning the robot upside down or simply blowing it to smithereens, and the second being it sinking in sand. Imagine a slow wind-storm that carries a lot of sand. The robot starts to get muddled up in it and tries to climb off from it but it's no avail since there's always more sand coming. How can it cope with that? Does it have the Zerg's Burrow ability? :)

Correction: It's German-American-Canadian

[Onnimikki]

The Scorpion project is also being worked on by McGill University's Ambulatory Robotics lab (simulation videos of the six- and eight-legged versions are available there). I should know, since I've been working on improved leg designs to double Scorpion's forward velocity: see my webpage.

So, the project is also Canadian.

Hmmmm

[jawtheshark]

This thing looks like a Pentium II processor on legs!
Stop my CPU, it is running away because I did too much PovRay! ;-)

Re:Hmmmm

[PhxBlue]

Let's just hope it does its math a little better. The last thing we need is a robot that thinks it has 7.9999999328 legs. . .

This looks VERY familiar

[Xthlc]

I just know I've seen this particular robot before.

Dear mom,

[BiOFH]

I'm moving to the desert to be with the one I love.
He has a good government job and we'll be traveling a lot.

Please understand.
Love,
Aibo

Now You Tell Me!

[SEWilco]

I was wondering what that danged critter was which tried to crawl into my tent. It came in my property, can I sell the pieces on eBay?

Scorpions?

[youngsd]

German...

"Scorpion Project"

Well, Rock Me Like a Hurricane! I didn't even know they were still around. What's this about them walking around in the desert, though?

-Steve

Re:But what if?

[coryboehne]

Mojave desert, not Sahara desert, camels live in the Sahara region of the world, not the Mojave region -(read California). However an actual concern for me would be either a drunken redneck running it over in his pickup, or same drunken redneck missing it in his pickup and stopping to blow "that funnney critter all the way on back to where it ottta be with muh 12 gauge". Now theres a serious concern. :)

Walking stability

[Bastian]

Read the article - they have a page talking about how 8-legged robots provide a much more stable platform while walking than 6-legged ones.

This makes sense to me - I can't really see any leg movement pattern for a 6-legged robot that wouldn't introduce a fair amount of wiggling.

Oh Dear

[Phoenix666]

I do hope they programmed it to take arhythmic, shuffling steps on its journey. Sandworms can hear footfall a long way off...

Check out the Vids!!

[serutan]

Be sure to look at the video clips of Arthur (the earlier prototype). The German musical accompaniment is worth the wait.

offtopic, but damnit...

[radiashun]

i don't care if this scorpion is robotic, it isn't cool unless it flouresces like a real scorpion. honestly, they make the coolest dorm pets :-)

(in case you're interested in this, check out this link: HERE)

Bust, probably...

[cr0sh]

My first impression after seeing the robot on the site was "what the hell are those wires doing out in the open?". Given the conditions of the area they are doing the run in (where daytime/nighttime temp fluctuations are large), exposed wires would be in for a real beating. Even if well protected, with metal sheilding or whatnot, they still will be flexed a lot - here's hoping they have an efficient AI that can change tactics when a leg motor fails.

I also question when they will be doing this run of 25 miles. If they don't pick the right time of season, they will run into either dust storms (strong enough to rip the paint off your car and needing a new windshield), thunderstorms (dropping a lot of water in mere hours), or a combo of both if they are really unlucky.

This robot is going to take a few days to go the distance. It will have to deal with desert conditions (both day and night conditions, and weather) and desert obstacles (brush, trees, loose soil, rocks, animals, washes, etc).

I really question the whole project - was the goal to make a legged vehicle or to go a distance autonomously?

I think about the DARPA Grand Challenge, and I think what would be the best vehicle for such a thing. Then I thought it would be a challenge to go any distance autonomously. For the terrain, legs are OK, but use a lot of power. Considering the obstacles likely to be encountered, a much better and more efficient system would seem to use wheels.

I would go for a system similar to what the Mars Rover used, the suspension system with six wheels, but scale it up a bit to use larger ATV wheels. Keep the engine, but throttle it back greatly (under computer control) to maximize fuel consumption (properly tuned, etc with proper throttling, you can get hundreds of miles per gallon of fuel). Keep solar panels and batteries on-board, which at minimum could run the system in the event of an emergency to "call home". Such a system would be able to make a 25 mile run in probably a day or two maximum, and could possibly compete in the DARPA challenge.

At the end of the day, though - regardless of whether this legged wonder does it, or somebody builds another device, wheeled or legged, that does it, even over a much shorter distance, they will have come up with a solution, and proved that solutions exist, to several "grand problems" in autonomous robotics that would prove useful in a number of other situations (ground rescue, factory work, planetary rovers, underwater exploration, etc).

Movie Cliche of the Future

[Tablizer]

100 years from now westarn bars will hang the "skulls" of those that don't make it up on their walls.