One Giant Step for Humanoids

An anonymous reader writes "There are a few robots that do amazing things. Honda's Asimo can walk backward and climb stairs. Sega's idog can dance to music. A tougher nut to crack has been making robots walk like humans. Today, scientists introduce three humanoid striders at the annual AAAS meeting. Unlike other robots that have to power every move, these three save energy by letting gravity do a lot of the work. Like humans, they pick up their feet and just let 'em drop. Engineers say they'll inform the next generations of humanoids and also improve design of robotic prostheses for people. And hey, why not send them to Mars to look for those microbes?"

Comments

sites

[r84x]

Here are the homepages for the biped labs of the three universities represented in the article.

Delft

Cornell

MIT

Re:sites

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

I'm sorry, "One great step for hemroids"? Is this a "geek" afliction?

Prosthetics

[BWJones]

Robotic or semi-robotic prosthesis are going to be more and more in demand because ironically of advances in battlefield armor. Current flak jackets (body armor) and helmets are protecting the vital bits of our soldiers, but often limbs (and necks) are sites of damage from explosions and firearms. Many of these soldiers are undergoing amputations either in Iraq or more commonly in Landstuhl, Germany and coming home with prosthetics of varying sophistication.

There are a couple of interesting recent additions to the Internet that cover these issues. One is an article by Steve Silberman in Wired and the other very interesting site is Stuart Hughes blog. Stuart is a world news producer with the BBC who unfortunately stepped on a landmine covering the Iraq war and now writes fairly frequently about "stumpy" and his prosthetic leg.

Re:Prosthetics

[ZephyrXero]

Kind of ironic if you think about it huh? In movies, you always see scientists working on projects to help people only to have them used by the military in the end...and now we're seeing the opposite ;)

Re:Prosthetics

[BWJones]

We scientists are always making stuff the defense department is interested in. You would absolutely be amazed at the possibilities that people think of for basic science research. In fact, I am going to be meeting with a bunch of DOD folks in a couple of months because they are interested in what we are doing. Not everything the DOD does though is involved with taking of life. There is a considerable interest in battlefield medicine and such. At any rate, this is an aspect of the Bush administrations push to applied as opposed to basic research that troubles me. We should not push basic research to the sidelines because that is where advances start from that yes, even the DOD can take advantage of.

Re:Prosthetics

[Infinityis]

Here I thought you were going to suggest using robots instead of humans on the front lines, and then you talked about just fixing humans with robotic parts. I should think someday we won't have to risk lives so often. We'll have robot wars between countries, and people will get used to the idea of not risking their lives to exercise control over others.

course, that's probably a ridiculous notion...

Re:Prosthetics

[amliebsch]

It's not so ridiculous. Aren't we already moving in that direction with highly automated armaments, "smart" bombs, cruise missiles, and now in prototyping, fully automated flying drones? The reason we haven't seen much of it so far is that it has been a long time since we've had full-out combat between two powers wealthy enough to afford it. (Mainly because, I think, countries that could afford it also tend to have nukes.) The U.S. can, and is moving in that direction, but terrorists still prefer the low-tech approach.

Re:Prosthetics

[digaman23]

(Thanks for the link to my article, BWJones, which doesn't cover prosthetics, but does cover why more veterans will need them than in previous wars, and the pioneering approach of an Army doctor who is seeking smarter ways to ease soldiers' pain as they go through the evacuation process.)

Re:Prosthetics

[Basehart]

"The U.S. can, and is moving in that direction (highly automated armaments, "smart" bombs, cruise missiles, and now in prototyping, fully automated flying drones), but terrorists still prefer the low-tech approach."

Unfortunately that's why terrorists will have to bring their half of the war into our cities and neighborhoods. As soon as they're unable to spill the blood of their attackers, antagonists, liberators or whatever, they'll start coming after mom and pop on their way to Walmart, Anytown, USA to get even.

If we start getting too remote control on their asses the safest place to be in the USA will be on a military base!

Re:Prosthetics

[rd4tech]

my comment: here

Re:Prosthetics

[Anonymous Coward]

A very cool article from NYT.com: (if you wanna see the pictures, check it out at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/16/technology/16rob ots.html?pagewanted=1&oref=login. )

The American military is working on a new generation of soldiers, far different from the army it has.

"They don't get hungry," said Gordon Johnson of the Joint Forces Command at the Pentagon. "They're not afraid. They don't forget their orders. They don't care if the guy next to them has just been shot. Will they do a better job than humans? Yes."

The robot soldier is coming.

The Pentagon predicts that robots will be a major fighting force in the American military in less than a decade, hunting and killing enemies in combat. Robots are a crucial part of the Army's effort to rebuild itself as a 21st-century fighting force, and a $127 billion project called Future Combat Systems is the biggest military contract in American history.

The military plans to invest tens of billions of dollars in automated armed forces. The costs of that transformation will help drive the Defense Department's budget up almost 20 percent, from a requested $419.3 billion for next year to $502.3 billion in 2010, excluding the costs of war. The annual costs of buying new weapons is scheduled to rise 52 percent, from $78 billion to $118.6 billion.

Military planners say robot soldiers will think, see and react increasingly like humans. In the beginning, they will be remote-controlled, looking and acting like lethal toy trucks. As the technology develops, they may take many shapes. And as their intelligence grows, so will their autonomy.

The robot soldier has been a dream at the Pentagon for 30 years. And some involved in the work say it may take at least 30 more years to realize in full. Well before then, they say, the military will have to answer tough questions if it intends to trust robots with the responsibility of distinguishing friend from foe, combatant from bystander.

Even the strongest advocates of automatons say war will always be a human endeavor, with death and disaster. And supporters like Robert Finkelstein, president of Robotic Technology in Potomac, Md., are telling the Pentagon it could take until 2035 to develop a robot that looks, thinks and fights like a soldier. The Pentagon's "goal is there," he said, "but the path is not totally clear."

Robots in battle, as envisioned by their builders, may look and move like humans or hummingbirds, tractors or tanks, cockroaches or crickets. With the development of nanotechnology - the science of very small structures - they may become swarms of "smart dust." The Pentagon intends for robots to haul munitions, gather intelligence, search buildings or blow them up.

All these are in the works, but not yet in battle. Already, however, several hundred robots are digging up roadside bombs in Iraq, scouring caves in Afghanistan and serving as armed sentries at weapons depots.

By April, an armed version of the bomb-disposal robot will be in Baghdad, capable of firing 1,000 rounds a minute. Though controlled by a soldier with a laptop, the robot will be the first thinking machine of its kind to take up a front-line infantry position, ready to kill enemies.

"The real world is not Hollywood," said Rodney A. Brooks, director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at M.I.T. and a co-founder of the iRobot Corporation. "Right now we have the first few robots that are actually useful to the military."

Despite the obstacles, Congress ordered in 2000 that a third of the ground vehicles and a third of deep-strike aircraft in the military must become robotic within a decade. If that mandate is to be met, the United States will spend many billions of dollars on military robots by 2010.

As the first lethal robots head for Iraq, the role of the robot soldier as a killing machine has barely

Re:Prosthetics

[BWJones]

Any time Steve.

Re:Prosthetics

[DigitumDei]

While I think many of the worlds top armies are definitly trying to move towards that; the possible drawbacks are rather worse than many may assume.

Right now, a leader (lets call him bush for the duration of this example), has to be careful when waging war otherwise he will piss off his country thus ruining his and his parties reelection prospects. With the right application of patriotism a leader can get away with waging war, but its still by no means easy to keep up support when parents children are being killed on a distant battle field.

If the army became completely remote then this political backlash would be greatly reduced since the only loss for that country would be machinery and money.

War could increasingly become the first option rather than the last as the costs become more and more tolerable. This would result in a unbalancing of power that the world has never seen before. With one or two countries completely unafraid to send in the army while most of the smaller countries face a prospect of having to support huge human armies to counter the possibility of hi tech invasions.

Drawbacks would be...

* High civilian/armed forces casualties in lesser countries.
* Even more terroism as all smaller countries realise their armies can no longer protect them.
* The rapid destruction of many economies as countries try to keep up.

As harsh as it may sound, it is good that todays superpowers still have people in their armies. The deaths of those people are what keep politicians in check. Without those deaths, without the political drawbacks they bring, future goverments may make our current goverments of the world look like nobel peace prize winners.

Re:Prosthetics

[St. Arbirix]

The grandparent was referring to the fact that because of advances in armor deaths in war decrease while injuries increase (since more people are getting injured rather than killed).

What you are referring to is the fantastic notion that technological advances are first applied for peace and then later for war. Since the beginning of humanity technologies developed for war *still* find more practical uses than technologies developed for peace.

Re:Prosthetics

[TFGeditor]

"... terrorists still prefer the low-tech approach."

Made me think of War of the Worlds: the ailiens, with their invincible technology, destroyed by a common cold virus.

Re:Prosthetics

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't argue with the success of the low tech approach.

The highest price I've seen for the 9/11 attack was around USD$200000, or about 100k/ attacker. The damage has been estimated at one trillion. That's a heckuva "profit".
As ugly as it was, from a tactical/stategy POV, it was a stunning success, much better return on investment than Pearl Harbor.

Re:Prosthetics

[Anonymous Coward]

Right now, a leader (lets call him bush for the duration of this example)

Okay, but where else did you use the Bush name in your example? ;)

Re:Prosthetics

[ZephyrXero]

exactly...I was talking about it in the "fantastic" sense at the point when I said "in movies"...lol. It wasn't really a very serious post man...chill :)

Re:Prosthetics

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL I guess I can't maintain enough bush hatred...

Re:Prosthetics

[Bob Uhl]

That doesn't make sense. War is imposiing one's will on another by force (so too is law, but that's another matter for another day). Yes, we'll use more and more mechanical devices, but they will be used to kill the enemy until he submits. Eventually he'll have robots defending him, so our bots will need to kill his bots so they can get to him--but in the end it all boils down to applying sufficient force to one's enemy to cause him to submit.

Re:Prosthetics

[newpath4comVersion2]

The day after we make robots having artificial intelligence, they will surpass us, realize there's no good reason for war, and QUIT.

Walk like a human?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe there are more efficient methods of locomotion.

moyven-hey

Re:Walk like a human?

[bigattichouse]

Its not about efficiency, its about "Creepy" factor. Robots that *look* or *act* human need all those little things that make us feel comfortable... they need to walk naturally, or blink at a normal rate - or you won't interact with them properly, and they give you a feeling of "Wrongness" .

Re:Walk like a human?

[gwydion04]

you speak of the uncanny valley, methinks :)

Re:Walk like a human?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't it make more sense to not bother trying to make them human-like if this research is correct? Aiming for the peak before the 'uncanny valley' would be more cost-effective than trying to create a virtually perfect human replica robot. Think C3PO or something - he's human enough that his form shouldn't bother anyone, but it's not so human that anyone could find it disturbing/offensive (well, there's always some people who find something offensive, but you get the idea).

Re:Walk like a human?

[lakerdonald]

I do agree that for humans to interact with robots on a natural level, they can't be like the robots of sci-fi lore. Their mannerisms will need to be more subtle, in my opinion.

Re:Walk like a human?

[lawpoop]

What about muppets? They don't have a lot of the details that real people have -- in fact, their facial expressions are downright primitive : no eyebrows, no mouth expressions, etc. For the most part, the only have one hand to emote with. Is it because they are wrangled by humans that they aren't so creepy? Or is it because they are a good enough caracature of people without being too close?

Re:Walk like a human?

[EspressoMachine]

It's only creepy if they're made to look human. It seems to me, we'd want to keep our robots looking as much like machines as possible. Then it doesn't matter that they don't move like people, and most importantly, everyone knows that they are in fact machines.

Re:Walk like a human?

[McDrewbie]

Why do we need robots everywhere, interacting with us? Am I the only one out there that doesn't find this idea of a future society appealing?

Re:Walk like a human?

[lawpoop]

Remember that C3PO is actually a person. There was a guy inside of him that gave him all of his movements. Yeah, his face was frozen, but he still had the body language of a human being, albeit a bit stiff. Add to that the langauge, and you've got a stroke sufferer, not a robot.

Re:Walk like a human?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey!

Once these nice female-humanoids become more human like, they will stop going out with geeks or even be near them.

Re:Walk like a human?

[ArmchairGenius]

There certainly are - they can walk like an egyptian

Re:Walk like a human?

[BorgHunter]

What if their skin is gold, their eyes gold, and they like to pretend to be Sherlock Holmes?

Re:Walk like a human?

[syd2000]

Bothers me a little bit. Looks like the corporate need to reduce labor costs will over time bring on the robotic nation.

Re:Walk like a human?

[cnettel]

I, for one, welcome our three-law abiding new bipedal robot overlords.

Re:Walk like a human?

[AbbyNormal]

Too Easy...

"Creepy" Factor? "Walk" UnNaturally? "Blink at an abnormal rate"? Lack of normal interraction?

You mean like 90% of /. readers?

Re:Walk like a human?

[acebone]

Muppets don't have eyebrow and mouth expressions ? - Tell Fozzie, Gonzo or Animal that !

Re:Walk like a human?

[mdielmann]

Okay, how about R2D2. If you buy into the uncanny valley thing, then there is a point where most of the fundamental points can be covered adequately without having people be revolted with the robot. The questions are where is that point, and can we give robots the functional capabilities while compensating for their overall creep factor in other areas.

Re:Walk like a human?

[mdielmann]

This reminds me of a book I read, The Regiment, I believe (certainly by Dalmas). When describing the intercom system, he notes that there is the slightest distortion in the sound, not because they can't make it more realistic, but to give people a cue that the voice they're hearing is not from a person in the room. It's a related idea. If there is no benefit from having robots look human, and it makes it easy for people to diffirentiate between people and robots, we may be better off using lesser technology in that area. Which is not to say that we wouldn't want at least locomotion to be comparable with humans.

Re:Walk like a human?

[spectral]

it's the same with video games and movies. The more realistic something becomes, the more our brain gets confused. So many people didn't like the final fantasy movie because it bothered them that they looked human, but acted wrong at times. That's why most completely computer generated things are done in quite a comic fashion. They COULD come much closer to approximating people, but then you get bothered by it.

Seeing a bipedal, human size robot would do the same. R2D2 is a moving machine, but not human shaped. However with that comes all of the stigmas. No one converses with their vacuum cleaner, and I've got something down in the basement with a bit of paint would look pretty close to R2D2. So for robots to become a 'natural' part of society, they need to become more like us. For better or for worse.

Plus, it's a neat engineering feat, and interesting psychology to see how people do react to them.

Muscles, perhaps?

[Avyakata]

"...save energy by letting gravity do a lot of the work. Like humans, they pick up their feet and just let 'em drop."

That makes sense, but humans don't really just let their feet "drop." Our steps are actually quite controlled...if we just let gravity pull them down, we'd have pretty heavy footfalls, not to mention an awful lot of shuffling...

Re:Muscles, perhaps?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, what you say *seems* intuitively right but is proved not-quite-correct by research in passive-dynamics. The energy required to make precisely controlled steps (i.e., muscularly-actuated) is much greater than the energy humans (or any other legged creature, for that matter) expend on walking. Bipedal walking for animals of our size is possible only because humans have evolved adaptive, energy-saving strategies for bipedal motion (for instance, the long tendons and ligaments of our legs are used as passive energy stores).

However, this is not to say that human walking is not a complex coordination of many muscular systems. It's just that steps are not as controlled as we'd like to think. This is by design, so that we can adapt quickly to unpredictable surfaces. Robots that try to be very controlled in walking usually are very slow because they must do many dynamic calculations that humans simply don't do because of the way our legs are designed.

Re:Muscles, perhaps?

[Dachannien]

Actually, "letting them drop" isn't very far from the truth. Of course, we don't just let our feet fall straight down. We swing our legs forward and let our feet catch ourselves before we fall flat on our faces. We actually let a lot of the motion during swing phase happen via gravity, as our lower legs rotate down and forward around the knee joint.

Probably more to the point of what the blurb was talking about, but didn't really explain: human walking uses dynamic stability. During the period of time where one foot is off the ground, our center of mass is not stably supported by the other foot. Compare this to the insect tripod gait, where at all times the center of mass is within the triangle formed by drawing a line between the three stanced feet - thus making it *statically* stable. And compare this to Asimo and the other famous bipedal robots out of Japan - they maintain a statically stable support by balancing the center of mass directly over one of the legs, but they aren't dynamically stable like humans can be.

Re:Muscles, perhaps?

[cnettel]

Also, remember that a leg is not dropping. I know you indirectly said so by mentioning the energy stores and so on, but I think it's important to make it an explicit point.

We approximate a pendulum rather than letting the foot be some kind of ball attached to a "string" (the leg) bouncing up and down. Human movements without a proper grasp of angular momentum gives strange interpretation, like that of the OP.

Re:Muscles, perhaps?

[Fear the Clam]

You've never lived in an apartment under people with a toddler, have you?

Re:Muscles, perhaps?

[aXis100]

I would think our steps are only controlled when they need to be. Walking on level ground, we're just using passive dynamics.

Re:Muscles, perhaps?

[SnowZero]

And compare this to Asimo and the other famous bipedal robots out of Japan - they maintain a statically stable support by balancing the center of mass directly over one of the legs

That's not exactly true, assuming by "stability" you mean "equilibrium". Asimo and QRIO operate in dynamic equilibrium, keeping the ZMP (Zero Moment Point) over their ground foot at all times. It's not statically stable in the sense that they could stop moving and not fall over. When both feet are down however, they usually do indeed go into a period of static equilibrium. A human gait (and presumably these new robots) don't keep the ZMP over the foot for a reasonable portion of the stride, so in that sense they are truly falling and catch themselves through the walking motion.

IJHR is a good new journal, and has the fulltext for every article. The first issue has a good history of the ZMP in bipedal locomotion.

Re:Muscles, perhaps?

[Anonymous Coward]

Passive-dynamics is well and good. But all that says is whether or not we need to be using muscle-control. It says rather little about whether we do, and if so, when.

Accelerometry says we make many minute adjustments to our walking with each step. So while we often just let gravity do the work, we're capable of adjusting that on the fly, quite quickly.

Re:Muscles, perhaps?

[kEnder242]

IANAN(Ninja) but During Budo class you learn that Americans walk funny, we're just good enough at it that we don't fall down on our faces. In other countries (Japan) they _pull_ with the lead leg instead of falling on it. The american way looks like a "frankenstein" walk to them. If you walk backwards your body automatically remembers how to walk this way. It feels funny forwards if you aren't used to it, but apparently its great for distance walking and stability.

Re:Muscles, perhaps?

[Dachannien]

Thanks much for the clarification. Like, mod parent up and stuff. :)

The MIT robot

[sub7]

I saw the MIT robot this past summer stumbling around outside Fenway park after a Red Sox game! He walks like a drunk...

Please.

[mctk]

Oh sure, they can walk like me. But what's their record on Dance Dance Revolution?

Re:Please.

[Infinityis]

You joke, but they may be closer than you think.

It started with bots on comptuer games like Counter-Strike, now we've got bots walking more efficiently, pretty soon, some thing akin to Commander Data will get perfect scores on DDR every time.

What am I thinking, robots like that will soon be able to get perfect scores while playing multiple games of DDR simultaneously...

Re:Please.

[the MaD HuNGaRIaN]

I think I saw that dancing robot you're referring to.

Re:Please.

[cgenman]

A better question,

They can walk like Humans, but can they walk like this?

Re:Please.

[Hes Nikke]

WARNING: The parrent link is NSFW! (my eyes... they burn!)

Sending to mars it interesting, but...

[WindBourne]

there are probably better forms to send there. The rovers are interesting, but they can not cover a large amount of terrain at a time. It would probably be better to have some sort of a flyer, so that it can move quickly for long distances.

Re:Sending to mars it interesting, but...

[Boronx]

What kind of wingspan would you need to fly on mars? Now, a Titan flyer could get by with little stubs, or maybe some kind of lighter-than-air flyer, that could easily land to do analysis of objects. We really ought to send flyers into the gas giants, too.

Re:Sending to mars it interesting, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't measure the success of a mission by the distance that was covered, but by how much terrain was analysed. There's no point in travelling faster than the rate at which instruments can analyse the soil and rocks.

Re:Sending to mars it interesting, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

You are somewhat true. But just as it is on Earth, there are different types of terrain and geological things depending on where you are.

Re:Sending to mars it interesting, but...

[beacher]

They're already out in space... Watch some MST3K and look at MIT's Toddler (Tom Servo), Cornell and Delft look like they are Crow's parents... As for Gypsy... mmmm... Barney's Actimate that was rooted by a vacuum cleaner? dunno...

B

Re:Sending to mars it interesting, but...

[Brutulf]

They are already doing that: http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology /mars_plane_020612-1.html

Re:Sending to mars it interesting, but...

[CyberKnet]

Flight Simulator Experience On Mars

Nuff Said.

awesome.

[Anonymous Coward]

im happy. The asimo ran like an old lady.

When they walk they really look human

[Anonymous Coward]

and some of them are programmed to think they ARE human..

Perfect For Military Use

[Anonymous Coward]

With the current drive to put robots into the front lines of the battlefield, and perhaps build combat robots, this application would fit right into the scheme of building a fighting robot.

I'm up for anything to give our boys a leg in this fight. This is it. I hope the Pentagon can find a way to apply this technology.

One giant step...

[Anonymous Coward]

Darn, I was hoping for one step for Giant Humanoids!

get on with it already

[QuantumG]

I wish Honda would do something with ASIMO that is actually useful. Send him to work at McDonalds (yes, I recognise the irony of spending millions of dollars to replace someone who gets paid minimum wage) or at an old folks home or something. Instead of focusing on the intricate details of "standing up" and "walking forward" why not choose something for him to do, and solve all the problems needed for him to do it. But don't invent Yet Another Bi-pedal Locomotion Technique, that problem is solved more than enough to move on to the next problem.

Re:get on with it already

[Lord_Dweomer]

What an ignorant post. These are generic robotics problems that NEED to be solved if robotics are to evolve into what is today the realm of science fiction. The reason you keep seeing "yet another bi-pedal locomotion technique" is because scientists aren't satisfied with the current offerings.

Rest assured there are entire industries who make specialized robotics for the likes of the fast food industry, etc. What we need is more research into general robotic functions, such as walking, recognition, etc.

Re:get on with it already

[scubaed]

But don't invent Yet Another Bi-pedal Locomotion Technique, that problem is solved more than enough to move on to the next problem.

Nope, I'm sorry, but it has barely begun to being solved (and this article is in the right direction).

Asimo does not solve the problem, it merely over-engineers it into oblivion. Linearizing every joint and making it look somewhat realistic does not solve the problem, that's why it can only run 30 minutes or so on a charge (pun intended).

Re:get on with it already

[QuantumG]

We see YABLT because bi-pedal walking is a "research area". It's seen as something that students can study so they do.

Re:get on with it already

[vadim_t]

It is *far* from solved.

There was an article not so long ago about a robot that can stand up from lying on the floor. That was some pretty big progress. However, even that robot is still very far from a human. It needs almost two minutes for that!

Current robots barely walk properly. They still have a long way to go until they can do things like jumping on one leg, which are trivial for humans.

Re:get on with it already

[QuantumG]

It's solved enough for a robot to be able to carry a tray of food out to a waiting customer. That's what's important.

Re:get on with it already

[FinestLittleSpace]

No, it's not. Humans (and animals) have the sense which is more important than ANYTHING in public situations: general awareness.

what if a little kids runs round it's feet, or a kid runs in front of them? The robot goes NEAAAAAARGH and falls over.

Until they can produce organic robots who use their legs without so much bloody automation, then you can start saying theyre ready.

Re:get on with it already

[ErikZ]

Send them there to do what? ASIMO can walk and do other movements. That's it. The only way to make it useful to the public at this point would be to stick a lightbulb on it's head and call it a lamp.

It's just for research.

Re:get on with it already

[QuantumG]

That's my point. The reason ASIMO can't do shit is because they are fiddling with walking and balancing instead of hand-eye co-ordination and speech understanding.

Re:get on with it already

[eraserewind]

And it's a research area because it's interesting, and it hasn't been solved to satisfaction, or even close yet. I think you'll find most "research areas" are like that.

Re:get on with it already

[Hard_Code]

Until a cat runs in front of it and the robot dumps the tray of food directly on the customer.

Problem not solved.

Re:get on with it already

[QuantumG]

and that would be different to a McDonalds employee how? BTW - what ass-end of the world are you in where there's cats in McDonalds.

Re:get on with it already

[ErikZ]

Do you understand what you're asking for? AI advanced enough to understand speech and process/interact with a 3-d enviroment. That's huge.

It doesn't exist man. Despite all the research that's been done in AI, we don't even know what it will take to make such a beast.

I will consider myself lucky if we build a working AI in my lifetime.

Re:get on with it already

[QuantumG]

Yes, and spending all your time trying to make robo walk better isn't going to get us there either. This is a public company we're talking about, not a university. Honda should be doing research with the aim of making a product.

Re:get on with it already

[PingPongBoy]

without so much bloody automation

One thing to be said for automation - we store a lot of info about basic walking in our nervous system. It's too much work to think about walking when there's nothing special to watch out for. Being able to replicate basic low-energy walking with a machine is therefore quite useful.

Now, on to awareness. Awareness gives us cause to move ourselves about. We somehow gain awareness that we have legs and that they have some ability to move us. We learn that they are strong and flexible to some degree, that they have some responsiveness, feeling, speed, durability, geometry, control, etc. etc. Even if the robot never attains walking but still reports with some accuracy a discovery of these attributes, it would raise eyebrows.

Re:get on with it already

[Rolken]

Your comments in this thread are so astoundingly shortsighted that I wonder if I'm just feeding trolls by replying. But in the event that I'm not...

Engineering problems are rarely a matter of simply finding a solution. There are always tradeoffs between costs, efficiencies, and results, and improvements to be made in each. The new locomotive method is vastly more energy efficient than the old, which in itself easily justifies keeping a test robot around.

And on the general topic of usefulness, even if their results lately had been lackluster, they don't justify sending the robot to be "productive" any more than physicists should be sent to do manual labor if they can't manage to crank a theory out. Their potential ultimate benefit to society is much greater in their ivory tower, even if they don't produce immediate results, because the rewards of a success are orders of magnitude larger.

Now then, if you can attempt to actually comprehend the general meaning of my post rather than choosing a sentence or two to snipe at as you seem to have done with the other posters, you might find yourself more enlightened.

Re:get on with it already

[ErikZ]

They are doing research with the aim of making a product. The product is a walking robot.

Re:get on with it already

[QuantumG]

There is a place for pure research, but it's not in a publically listed company. Honda should be making products and thus far their progress with bi-pedal robots has been, well, pedestrian. So no, I'm not being shortsighted, I'm simply saying that Honda should be making more progress than this if they are making a product.

Re:get on with it already

[QuantumG]

Here's the thing about a product, you actually have to have someone to sell it to. A walking robot is not a product, unless you're going to sell it to universities so they can use it as a research platform, in which case why would Honda be doing the research for them?

Re:get on with it already

[ErikZ]

I don't see why not. We have a industry of rolling robots, and robots that are immobile.

Re:get on with it already

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you saying I'm not existent? This is really not fair!

Re:get on with it already

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what'll happen once droids take over McJobs.

http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

Re:get on with it already

[Eradicator2k3]

"These are generic robotics problems that NEED to be solved if robotics are to evolve into what is today the realm of science fiction."

Of the handful of real-world applications I can think of for robotics, validating Sci-Fi stories isn't really one of them.

Re:get on with it already

[Anonymous Coward]

> I wish Honda would do something with ASIMO that is actually useful. Send him to work at McDonalds

Working the most menial of jobs is beyond the scope of any current or near-future humanoid robot.

Even a human needs 15 years before they can work at McDonald's; we're still working on getting robots to do what a human can after 15 months. ASIMO doesn't work at McDonald's in part because it can't.

Humanoid! Fetch me a beer! Nice humanoid.

[theworldiswatching]

Humanoid! Fetch me a beer! Nice humanoid.

Re:Humanoid! Fetch me a beer! Nice humanoid.

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Careful what you say: "... and I want some head... ON THE BEER"!

Re:Humanoid! Fetch me a beer! Nice humanoid.

[theworldiswatching]

That was a good one! I'll have to remember that.

Why not?

[lawpoop]

"And hey, why not send them to Mars to look for those microbes?"

Probably because there are much more efficient ways to locomote. Bipedalism is risky, especially if you want to bend over a lot to pick things up.

I'm in favor of a radially symmetrical spider-like walker that can turn in any direction, or even invert it legs and continue walking if it gets turned upside down. This would make it much more flexible in navigating the Martian environment.

You could have a central ring with legs attatched all around it, and then a rotating body that includes sensors, power supply, and a grappling hand. The single grappling hand descends from the center and pulls samples up into the body for storage/analysis.

Re:Why not?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Bipedalism is risky, especially if you want to bend over a lot to pick things up.

Speaking as an ex-convict I advise taking this man's words to heart.

Re:Why not?

[fredrik70]

oh god, where's my mod points when I need them...

Re:Why not?

[Crash McBang]

Well, here's one that was made in the 80s:

Odex 1

Large and strong, this dude could pick up the end of a pickup truck and move it around.

Re:Why not?

[savuporo]

"Bipedalism is risky, especially if you want to bend over a lot to pick things up"

Well, if you want a robust robot it must also be able to get up from any position it might get into. Insects have trouble with getting back on their feet if turned on their backs ( and of course yes they are more stable than bipeds when standing up ). But as you'd have to plan for such robustness anyhow in unknown environments, biped is more practical.
There is another advantage that human-like bipeds hold over other locomotion types - for human environments, like insides of buildings, vehicles, heck - kitchens etc, they are a perfect fit, i.e. the environment is tailor-made for them. For instance, human-like biped, given sufficient processing power and sensory capacity, its a lot easier task to navigate around in a skyscraper, enter and operate the lifts, walk up the stairs etc, than for instance a wheeled robot.

Re:Why not?

[Anonymous Coward]

THANKS! I've been searching for that one for ages. Never knew it was called ODEX

Re:Why not?

[aditi]

Bipeds like us don't need to bend over to pick things up. We can either squat or crouch. As far as I remember from a tour of the labs, the biped robot research at MIT is aimed at least in part at making the sorts of spider like robots you mention more efficient at walking. Apparently, biped walking is more energy efficient than most.

Re:Why not?

[lawpoop]

"Well, if you want a robust robot it must also be able to get up from any position it might get into..."

That's why I propose a radially symmetrical spider-like robot, with legs that can bend backwards. If it tumbles and finds itself upside-down, it can invert its legs and continue on, or it should be designed that if can muster enough force to flip itself over, aided by double-jointed legs.

I disagree that bipedal robots have a benefit in made-for-humans environments. Cats can get around a lot better than people in houses. The only benefit a humanoid robot would have is if it had arms and hands, and could manipulate objects designed for people. Otherwise a locomotion sysem of four or more legs is much more stable than two. And of course, you can easily add hands to a four, six, or eight legged robot.

In any case, wheels are the worst idea for locomotion anywhere expect roads. Mechanically, they are simple to build, and from an AI standpoint, they are easy to control, but they don't get you very far in any kind of non-artificial environment.

Re:Why not?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I agree that bipedal robots are unsteady. They are also much less efficient than wheeled designs, even on slightly rocky terrain. However, six-legged robots are much much worse. They are harder to control and consume much much more energy, because not only do they have to move three times as many legs, but moving those legs eats up a lot more energy since the motion is in no way a passive-dynamic (pendular) one. Notice that there are no large animals that use six-legged locomotion! This is no accident: it has to do with scaling.

On much smaller scales (e.g. actual spider sizes) or under water (e.g. in lobster habitats) animals often use six legs, because here the forces of damping are effectively much larger (making pendulum swinging impossible) and structures (exoskeletons, muscles, and tendons) are effectively much stronger, and therefore thinner, at lower weight.

Yeah!

[Anonymous Coward]

Time to do the Humanoid Boogie!.

Some people say it with flowers
Some people say it at Lloyds
But you don't find many tryin' to say it with humanoids...

Cred to Neil and the Bonzo Dog Band.

A bit of the old Hubris?

[Exluddite]

Hats off to the folks who are working on these robots. They truly are amazing bits of engineering. But are we really so narcissistic that we think something that looks and acts human is a good design? After all, the robots that really are useful to us (mostly in manufacturing) don't look human.

Re:A bit of the old Hubris?

[NerdConspiracy]

It's more like pandering to the hubris of the general public. This is essentially a marketing excercise, just like Asimo is a marketing excercise for Honda.
I'm not saying this is not valid research, but there is plenty of other research in robotics that doesn't make the news cause who wants to see robots that look like spiders or whatever. But make them look like humans (or cute dogs - whatever its name was) and it becomes news.

Re:A bit of the old Hubris?

[Hes Nikke]

But are we really so narcissistic that we think something that looks and acts human is a good design?

It works for the religoius zelliots who think that their god designed them in it's own image, so why not continue the cycle?

Re:A bit of the old Hubris?

[Jedi Alec]

But are we really so narcissistic that we think something that looks and acts human is a good design?

In terms of walking? Well, the human body is actually capable of performing quite well when walking large distances at a reasonable speed. I'll leave the exercise of looking for comparisons between humans and (other) animals as an exercise to the reader.

Besides, bipedal robots need only be made really, really large and we'll have mechs. Who cares about efficiency if you can have mechs? :-)

Re:A bit of the old Hubris?

[Mant]

Well, one advantage is it can easily navigate places built by humans for bipeds. Robots in factories designed for them is one thing, but would you redesign you house just for a domestic robot?

Re:A bit of the old Hubris?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's true if you are digging for silver or handling toxic materials...

But the "rest" of the world that most people normally inhabit are designed for human adults. If robots can be roughly oursize, with roughly our motions, they might be extremely useful.

This is the case in other IT areas as well - people are already here - once PC's work the way people do, say, understanding natural language better, they will become much more useful. Yes it's much harder to make a PC respond to us silly humans, when we can control a PC by entering in nothing but binary codes, after all, but the end result of this will be good stuff.

Striders!

[Rii]

Look out! Striders! Somebody get the rocket launcher!

Re:Striders!

[Onikuma]

Thank you. So i'm not the only one who thought that.

Mars is gonna be tough

[henrypijames]

It still takes a long way to have those robots learn running, crawling, dodging, rolling like Indiana Jones (or Lora Croft, if you prefer your robots feminine). Until then, I won't recommend them for a mission on another planet.

Seriously, insectoid robots are obviously much more suitable for terrain expedition.

Re:Mars is gonna be tough

[Anonymous Coward]

(or Lora Croft, if you prefer your robots feminine)

Oh man, this is gonna be the best prom ever!

Re:Mars is gonna be tough

[wackywendell]

Part of the reason insectoid designs also make much more effective designs is that insects are small, and so they only need spindly leg or wing types to maintain their weight, while robots are made out of metal or plastic, which is stronger, and therefore makes up for the increase in size (volume/weight increases cubically relative to leg length or width) by having stronger materials.

But why....

[CastrTroy]

Humanoid had to be the worse design as far as robots go. For animals it works because it would be hard for there to be an organic life form with wheels. Maybe something like a self driving segway would work well. They have that other segway wheelchair that climbs stairs and everything. If they spent more time designing the robots to do actual task like identifying objects, picking them up, and operating them, instead of spending the time trying to make them walk, we'd be a lot further along.

Re:But why....

[badmicrophone]

well, it's a migration strategy.

If we want our robots to live in a human world in our homes and cities they more or less need to fit our form factor. Additionally, if you want the robots to take over jobs like construction then, at first, they will need to be able to drive the decades old machinery - back-hoes, delivery trucks...you get the picture.

Going past that stage there is also the psycological consideration: a robot with whom you can shake hands is going to garner more emotional investment from us then the tank treaded claw-mobile.

when robots become the new automobile we WILL see them in much more "functional" forms: more machine like and specialized. but there will always be a place for the humanoid robot in our homes.

Re:But why....

[Hard_Code]

"the tank treaded claw-mobile."

Hah. I can just imagine it: tank treaded claw-mobile with a superfluous arm that sticks out the side to make the customer more emotionally comfortable before it destroys his house.

Re:But why....

[badmicrophone]

Ha! good times! well, before the house destroying that is!!! ¦D

Re:But why....

[adamfranco]

tank treaded claw-mobile with a superfluous arm that sticks out the side to make the customer more emotionally comfortable before it destroys his house.

Tank-dor the Burninator! *

* for those who missed the reference...

Re:But why....

[Anonymous Coward]

Humanoid had to be the worse design as far as robots go. For animals it works because it would be hard for there to be an organic life form with wheels.

My biomechanics advisor used to say "animals would have evolved wheels if wheeled locomotion were advantageous." You see, something like 80-90% of the earth's land surface is inaccessible to wheeled vehicles (from what I recall, this figure came from research sponsored by the Navy, but I forget the exact source). So why would a biology evolve wheels? Simply put, it wouldn't. Biology has found fins, legs, arms, tails, tentacles, segmented bodies, and even pressure-sensitive goo (snails use this) to be much more adaptable and energy-efficient for locomotion.

Re:But why....

[mink]

Mr. Dent, do you know how much dammage this construction robot would suffer if I just let it roll over you?

Your idea of the arm to mke you feel more comfortable sounds like something Douglas Adams would have come up with.

Re:But why....

[mink]

For construction reasons, why would we want them to be humanoid. HAve a robotic back hoe, robotic dump truck, robotic welder, ect.

For the welder, I think a more non human design would work better for dealing with high steel.

Re:But why....

[Minna Kirai]

If we want our robots to live in a human world in our homes and cities they more or less need to fit our form factor.

Funny, dogs and cars both fit well in my world of cities, and aren't my form factor. Both have a stabler shape that reduces much of the difficulties of bipedalism.

Re:But why....

[badmicrophone]

Funny, dogs and cars both fit well in my world of cities, and aren't my form factor. Both have a stabler shape that reduces much of the difficulties of bipedalism.

Haha! that is funny!

And true, but they both have problems opening a door in your house. And helping you work on your car. And pushing your shopping cart. And going on a roller-coaster ride with you, or a bus-ride or car-ride or airline flight.

I admit it's fun to imagine doing all this with a dog...or a car for that matter...but our world is designed around our form factor. the difficulties of bipedalism are offset by the benifits.

I know that a future "humanoid" robot will probably have something like additional digits on the hand, additional hands, heads. whatever. But bipedalism is the most energy-effecient form of legged locomotion over long, flat distances. and even treaded vehicles can only reach a fraction of the places legs can. Also if you bring your robot on an elevator it's going to take up less room if it's standing up (in this case a one-legged or no-legged robot would fare perhaps even better ;)

Lastly, to further clairify my standing: robots will come in all sizes - they obviously already do. And I am not guessing that humanoid robots will be the most prevelant type of robot. What I am thinking is that humanoid robots will have a very important place in the future of robotics.

Great minds elsewhere

[badmicrophone]

I can't help it, but alongside the pride and excitement I feel whenever I see technological progress like this I have this tinge of frustration.

How much money is spent every year on perfume? how many great mechanical engineers are working for sea-doo?

I mean, we could have so much more! Not just in robotics but chemisty, physics, space exploration...

But, alas, I know that all work and no play makes humans a dull animal and that that perfume makes ladies smell very nice. Nevertheless, I cannot help this tinge of disapointment which inevitably follows my rush of happiness.

Re:Great minds elsewhere

[mr_null]

It is a bit frustrating how much effort we spend on leasure activities isn't it. I find it more frustrating to see all the people in my life who have some how lost the ability to dream and take risks.

At least there is the potential for the engineer working for sea-doo to make a breakthrough that could influence other works outside of their field, I'm not sure the same could be said for the poor sap working tech support for a bank.

I could go on a rant, but this is already headed way off topic, so I'll stop.

Re:Great minds elsewhere

[badmicrophone]

Hmm, you got me thinking. You know, really the only part of us humans that is more than mere animal is that teeny tiny frontal lobe.

Considering that minor piece of our brain accounts for a miniscule percentage of our body as a whole I can feel a little better knowing that we have an excuse for not being god-like in our intellectual pursuits just yet ;)

still, I wouldn't call it too soon if we could traverse the stars by decade's end ¦D

Re:Great minds elsewhere

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not just that all work and no play makes someone dull, it makes someone less happy which makes them less productive which means advancement in chemistry, physics and space exploration would slow down. It's also a side effect of allowing wage earners to spend the majority of their money as they see fit.

Also, those engineers working for sea-doo probably use some sort of CAD/CAE software. When they pay for their CAD/CAE licenses, some more money goes towards improving CAD/CAE software which helps engineers who are working on space craft and robots. Material advancements made at Sea-doo might also make their way into more useful markets.

So, what I'm saying is, don't feel so bad! ;-)

Humanoids

[Anonymous Coward]

Please continue the research... I am still waiting for my fembot to get laid!

Descriptions of How They Walk

[Sundroid]

PhysOrg.com has an article on the same subject, in which it describes how these 3 robots walk, for instance: "The Cornell robot supplies power to the ankles to push off. When the forward foot hits the ground, a simple microchip controller tells the rear foot to push off. During the forward swing of each leg, a small motor stretches a spring, which is finally released to provide the push." Fascinating stuff. I have the link to the article on my blog: http://sundroid.blogspot.com/, if anyone's interested.

Re:Descriptions of How They Walk

[Anonymous Coward]

link whore, just give the link lol

And they can clean your house!

[joel8x]

I just got my wife a Roomba robot vacum cleaner, and I have to say its one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time. It makes us feel like we're finally in the 2000's to have this little robot rolling around picking up cat hair while you are free to do other things.

I get really excited about the prospects of putting robotics to use in the home. Sure their use in science is great, but its pretty cool to have "Rosie" cleaning up!

Re:And they can clean your house!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah! that is nothing. I got my robot, a wife and I have to say it is one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time.

I get really excited about the prospects of little crawling around my house. Sure their use of sex is weird, but its pretty cool to have "Rosie" cleaning it up!

haha

[Anonymous Coward]

To do any of the things you just mentioned would require strong AI, and nobody has made any significant progress on that front since ... well, ever.

Any way to see the video without Real Player 10?

[The Wicked Priest]

I've got Real Player 8 on my system. When I follow the video link, RP8 wants to install RP10 (yuck). If I cancel, it won't let me view the vid. And when I try the link in MPlayer, it immediately says "Stream EOF detected".

Sega?!?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhhh, excuse me... Sony's AIBO has been dancing dynamically to music years before Sega's toy ever was dreamed up.

Sure they can walk and climb stairs but can they..

[ArmchairGenius]

Do it while chewing gum? I think not!

Re:Sure they can walk and climb stairs but can the

[Kraemahz]

Since they can't chew gum at all, I'm going to have to agree with you.

Hey it took days to program that.!

[EmbeddedJanitor]

The MIT robot normally walks properly like a human. For the "after the game" demo they wanted to make it look like an "after the game" human. Took a lot of effort to get that right!

Asimo serves an extremely important purpose

[Anonymous Coward]

I work at Honda, and let me tell you, Asimo exists for a reason:
So they have an excuse to give out tiny Asimo action figures whenever the president sneezes!!!

Specialized, but equally amazing I think

[yuckysocks]

This website has a neat video of dancing robots on it. It obviously doesn't carry the same implications
that a low-energy walking robot does, but the motor control and balance gyros and the what-have-you
needed for this act are still pretty impressive.

Video

Source page

Hmm...

[Alien Venom]

I'm still a little skeptical about this whole humans creating robots thing. I mean, I saw Terminator 2 and the outcome was not pretty.

Re:Hmm...

[Kehvarl]

However, it's better than the other way around. Just think of it; they're made of meat.

Yeah, Thats Nice...

[St.Anne]

These 'bots are great but they're still kids toys compared to advanced Westinghouse designs from the 1930's. When this robot finishes a task he even takes a smoke break !!

My $.02

[JordanAU]

I don't understand why they try to make human robots. If you think about it humans are not very specialized creatures, we can do a little bit of everything. run, swim, jumb, crawl, etc. They should make robots specific that way they can do a few tasks great as opposed to all tasks decently. For instance, if you want a robot that will take beer from your fridge, why would you make a humanoid robot that walks perfectly?? Just make two wheels and an arm that can open the fridge and pick up beer (or other items from your kitchen). Specialized robots would be cheaper, smaller, and more efficient. You could afford more of them and more people could afford them.

Re:My $.02

[FinestLittleSpace]

wheels dont run over bits of paper and old cans on the floor. wheels don't negotiate a 8 inch gap between 2 sofas. wheels don't go down spiral staircases. wheels don't like some textured surfaces. wheels take lots of power.

when/if they crack the two leg thing it'll be incredibly vast and applicable to so much. therefore price EVENTUALLY will drop. no point in f'ing with more stupid half way points. just keep working on the goal.

And humans are specialised. They can climb walk and crawl pretty much everywhere. THAT is useful.

Re:My $.02

[mr_null]

I don't understand why they try to make human robots.

From the article:

Collins is applying what's been learned in an effort to develop better prosthetic feet for humans. "I think that you can't know how the foot should work until you can understand its role in walking," he said.

That help at all?

Re:My $.02

[rumblin'rabbit]

One could make the following case: All of our tools, machines, and buildings are specifically designed for humans. Therefore a human-like robot could use our tools, machines, and buildings without having to modify them. For example, a human-like robot might be able to drive a car, climb stairs, and mix a martini.

I'm not sure even I buy the above argument. I think they sometimes develop human-like robots because such a silly design presents a challenge.

One side effect, as mentioned in previous posts, may be improved prosthetic limbs.

Re:My $.02

[woah]

What about stairs or other obsticles? You need legs for that.

You already said one arm, it will probably need another one to do anything useful, like holding the fridge door while getting a beer.

Put these things together and you have a humanoid robot.

Logical conclusion

[EmbeddedJanitor]

We're somewhere along the following evolutionary parth for war:

One king doesn't like the other king so he goes beats him up. Unfortunately he also gets hurt in the process.

Hey instead of **me** being hurt I'll send some blokes (==soldiers) over to beat up the other king.

The other king doesn't like to be beaten up, so he puts his soldiers in the way. We now have two armies beating eachother up.

Hey let's not send our soldiers into the battlefield to get hurt, let's send robots. Nobody gets hurt. Soldiers can sit at home and eat pizza.

The enemy then gets pissed that these robots beat up their people and build their own. Now we have robots beating up on robots.

Next, the one army gets pissed that their robots are getting beaten up and start hacking the enemy comms to stop the other robots. The enemy responds by hacking the hackers...

So what's the logical conclusion? Is war going to just end up being a big computer simulation with nobody getting hurt? Perhaps the kings should just go decide over a nice game of chess!

Re:Logical conclusion

[Pfhorrest]

There was a Star Trek episode that was sort of about this (forget which series, probably TOS) in which the Enterprise crew encountered a pair of worlds killing their own populations (by vaporization or some such) because of the results of a virtual war being carried on between them. One world would land a virtual bomb on another world's cities in the virtual war, and everyone "killed" in the sim would then be escorted to the vaporization chambers for execution. If either side didn't comply with the rules, actual bombs got lobbed instead, and not only people but the physical cities were destroyed as well.

The difference between that scenario or your chess scenario, and where this robotic/cyber warfare is headed, is that the objective of cyber warfare would be to disable the enemy's robots, so that your robots can get into the enemy city and... at that point just the enemy's defenselessness would probably lead them to surrender. If not, they send human defenders, which the robots would likely defeat, and then be free to do accomplish whatever it is the war was about.

But then, given that, as you say, many wars nowadays are really just personal disputed between individual leaders whose followers get caught up in, I'm much more in favor of the "if you really hate them, then YOU go and fight them" policy.

I hate the concept of organized military, where people fight only because they're paid and ordered to do so, but I'd gladly fight to defend my home, city, state, country, what-have-you from direct attack.

Re:Logical conclusion

[Anonymous Coward]

Your statements seem rather counterintuitive.

To my knowledge a king has never fought another king in single combat. Probably the closest comparison would be the kidnapping of royalty for political or economic gain.

Although technology is increasingly replacing mass infantry for some purposes- most obviously as mechanical cartage- with the exception of satellites and other remote sensor packages, portable items are still borne and operated by the soldier.

Excluding sustained aerial bombardment or undesirable biological/chemical warfare, there remains no swift method of extracting dedicated infantry from an entrenched position.

Whereas the electromagnetic radiation from a nuclear event (or an orbital electromagnetic pulse device) would at least disable- perhaps destroy- unshielded electronics and robotics, infantry sheltered in a trench parallel with such an event would be largely combat effective within just a few minutes.

Although technology can currently surplant or at least compliment humans in some useful ways, we're a long way off quasi-intelligent machinery usurping anything but the most undesirable positions: disposable recon units, minesweepers, observation posts, etc.

Re:Logical conclusion

[Hard_Code]

As long as people can still put bullets or bombs into other people they don't like, all the technology in the world isn't going to "solve" war.

Remember the "war to end all wars"? Yeah. We've had a few since then.

Re:Logical conclusion

[Adapa]

"So what's the logical conclusion? Is war going to just end up being a big computer simulation with nobody getting hurt?" We can always hope.

Re:Logical conclusion

[roman_mir]

Your statements seem rather counterintuitive.

To my knowledge a king has never fought another king in single combat. Probably the closest comparison would be the kidnapping of royalty for political or economic gain. - you seem to take his words to literally. One does not need a formal status of a king to actually be a king, a tribe leader that is. One does not even need to be a human to be a tribe leader. Take the Great Apes for example. The Alpha male is definitely a king and he will destroy others in hand to hand combat. It's just that we progress and later, when kings become more responsible for lives of more humans, we decide that their lives are important enough for the survival of the kingdome (village? whatever) for them to go into combat personally. Which didn't stop some kings from doing just that, but how often do you see today's 'kings' fighting on the battlefield personally? Bush wouldn't fight his own battles, he would send the poor shmacks to do his dirty job for him.

Re:Logical conclusion

[Scarblac]

You forget that ever since WW1, part of war is the mass killing of people from the other side without direct gain for your own side. In WW1 that was still pretty limited.

In WW2, killing civilians in huge numbers became a large part of the war machine. Forget about the front, you need to kill civilians in the other country's cities, by the millions. That's modern warfare - bomb the other country, hit civilians instead of military because they're easier to hit.

That reached its logical conclusion with the atomic bomb (and hydrogen bomb), and having thousands of them on missiles that can't be blocked. That stops war - two countries with sufficient nuclear missiles cannot go to war with each other. At least, it'll be over quickly if they do, taking the rest of them with us. India and Pakistan at least grew friendlier very quickly once they both had the bomb.

America has been involved in many skirmishes since WW2, but never any real full out wars on the scale of WW2 or WW1. As more and more countries develop the bomb, there will be ever less opportunity to attack small countries like they're doing now.

Re:Logical conclusion

[PantsWearer]

So what's the logical conclusion? Is war going to just end up being a big computer simulation with nobody getting hurt? Perhaps the kings should just go decide over a nice game of chess!

It'll never work as long as one of the "kings" involved isn't a very good "chess" player. And we've already got our "chess", it's international relations through negotiation and we've already seen how well that works out.

bah!

[MistabewM]

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. - Robert A. Heinlein

Re:bah!

[Wardish]

by MistabewM (17044) on Thursday February 17, @08:16PM (#11707016)
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. - Robert A. Heinlein

Heinlein is an old favorite of mine.

The truely scary part of that quote is with the exception of "die gallantly" I've done everything there multiple times.

He was quite right though, the version of intelligence that humans have is adapatability. And our bodies reflect that as well. In light of this discussion,

Humans are extremely energy efficient in locomotion. We aren't fast enough to catch many things in a short race but I don't know of any animal that is faster that we can't run down.

Having a locomotion system based on dynamic balance means we are capable of reacting immediatly to changed circumstances, often in reflex mode which drasticly speeds up the response time.

*chuckle* One might way we are the renaissance species such that our specialization is generalization and our nich is being able to adapt to almost any nich.

Watch out Roomba!!

[McBeer]

You can strap the vacuum cleaner you already own to one of these little fellows!

More details in Science research paper, videos

[FleaPlus]

For those of you looking for more details, here's the research paper published in Science (may need institutional subscription) and videos of all three robots.

Here's the abstract text:

Efficient Bipedal Robots Based on Passive-Dynamic Walkers
Steve Collins, Andy Ruina, Russ Tedrake, Martijn Wisse

Passive-dynamic walkers are simple mechanical devices, composed of solid parts connected by joints, that walk stably down a slope. They have no motors or controllers, yet can have remarkably humanlike motions. This suggests that these machines are useful models of human locomotion; however, they cannot walk on level ground. Here we present three robots based on passive-dynamics, with small active power sources substituted for gravity, which can walk on level ground. These robots use less control and less energy than other powered robots, yet walk more naturally, further suggesting the importance of passive-dynamics in human locomotion.

The Delft one blows me away

[serutan]

Wow, the one from Delft is so minimalist it doesn't even look like a real robot, more like a movie prop of a science project. Considering the bulk of some others like Asimo, and that true bipedal walking was big news only a couple years ago, reducing it to such a simple package is pretty amazing!

Re:The Delft one blows me away

[PingPongBoy]

You will soon realize as I did that R2D2 moves with little millipede legs rather than wheels.

humanoid robots these days.

[ikkonoishi]

In my day humanoid robots had to lift their legs uphill in the now both ways. That is if you had legs. My best friend got along fine with a set of wheels.

These modern robots and their "gravity assisted walking". How Dreadful.

Sincerly
Cee Threepio

cell processor and robots

[mxpengin]

I have been thinking about the recently anounced cell processor and robots, I think it will be excellent to use it in them. Remember that 2 of the companies involved in the development of the cell are toshiba and sony , and those two companies are developing/sell robots. The parallelism that that the cell will provide will be excellent. Imagine an APU dealing with some pattern recognition algorithms while other deals with voice recognition and so on .... I start to see a future with home robots made by sony, industrial robots by toshiba and business equipment by IBM .... here some links to robots

"at the annual AAAS meeting"

[reinard]

wow. i had to look 3 times to read what was actually written there. at first i thought, don't those two words mean the same thing?

it's time to go home. looooong day at work.

Whoa...

[Robotron23]

One of those robots looks like those drones from Star Wars, and another like that robot from Futurama!
Obviously, these top scientists are attempting to appeal to people who watch TV!

Little progress

[lux55]

Engineers drew from "passive-dynamic" toys dating back to the 1800s that could walk downhill with the help of gravity. Little progress has been made since on getting robots to walk like people.

This remark is interesting in that perhaps we're not making progress these days because we're not paying attention. We're not looking right.

The greatest inventors in history likely wouldn't consider themselves "creators" of their inventions so much as "observers" of the natural world. Prior to the past century (thank you Nietzche) inventors and artists played a similar role (look at Da Vinci, who is considered to be both), in that their job wasn't to "create" things, but rather to "mimic" the world they saw, and seek ways to perfect it.

Now, keeping value judgements out of this (I'm not claiming they're better than we are per se), it seems to me to be more effective the way things used to be done. Perhaps our "progressive" mindset has forgotten some important lessons.

Re:Little progress

[Mant]

We are making loads of progress, at least in sceintific and technological terms. The rate of progress in the last hundred years is probably faster than at any other time in human history, and shows no sign of slowing down.

What is more, I don't see any indications scientists and engineers have forgotten the natural world. We haven't exaclty had walking robots long, and people have certainly been looking to nature, the very fact we are building walking robots is proof.

In short, I think your whole post is pretty much bunk.

Re:Any way to see the video without Real Player 10

[mattmatt]

I haven't tried this particular file, but Media Player Classic plays Real stuff ok.

Neat.

[BigZaphod]

But can Asimo walk up the stairs backward?

Re:Neat.

[esteric]

Can you walk up the stairs backwards... while only seeing forward?

Re:Neat.

[/dev/trash]

Um, yeah. It's not all that hard.

Re:Neat.

[BigZaphod]

Uhh.. yeah. Can't you?

Re:Neat.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have stairs in your house?

Re:Neat.

[BigZaphod]

I have to go up stairs to get to my apartment. However, most people I know have stairs in their house--including my parents.

Robots or drones?

[amliebsch]

This reminds me of a topic I was thinking about recently: the misuse of the word "robot." I believe, as the word was originally intended, a robot is some kind of machine that processes input and autonomously makes decisions and acts accordingly (and with some kind of intelligence, to distinguish from simple logic devices like thermostats.) A drone, on the other hand, is some kind of device which can perform sophisticated mechanical acts, but depends on human command and control in order to act intelligently.

Thus, under this classification, most of these technology demonstrators are actually drones. They act as we tell them to act, and that's all they are capable of. Real robotics research, on the other hand, is more about artificial intelligence and autonomous goal achievement. Thus, though they can't walk, talk, and shake our hands, the machines entered in the DARPA Grand Challenge are more robots than these walking contraptions are.

Re:All humans are men, but not all men are humans

[Anonymous Coward]

worst. post. ever!

Inform them of what?

[Mantorp]

Engineers say they'll inform the next generations of humanoids...

Exactly the type of development I've spoken of

[csoto]

I've told people for years that "AI" has been going the wrong direction. Developments like Deep Blue only helped to feed this (incorrect) belief that "intelligence" very directly equates to "computational ability." This is so wrong, and so obviously wrong.

Look at your average toddler (I have one at home to study - get your own). Does this child compute the millions of different parameters required to negotiate a different path up, down, around, through, under their environment every time they want to go play with their train set? Nope. The kid throws his foot in front of him, in a basically "informed guess" that's partially learned, partially innate. He learns to then simply go along with whatever comes out. Swing your center of gravity to one side, and your body figures out how to deal with it in real time, based on an "informed guess" - no laborious computation as to trajectories or kinetics. Just some general goals and a shove in the right direction.

I call this concept "profoundly intuitive logic." Yes, we can be extremely rational about every motion, every activity, every human endeavour, but you'll find it's a lot easier to "just wing it." That's true intelligence.

Re:Exactly the type of development I've spoken of

[Hard_Code]

Huh? I thought that was some sort of pre-conceptual instincts combined with physiological specialization, all narrowed down by millions of years of evolution. Considering humans can sleep-walk, I don't think there is anything at all "logical" going on.

Re:Exactly the type of development I've spoken of

[antoy]

Read Jeff Hawkin's "On Intelligence". You'll thank me for it.

Except if you already have, of course. He argues that intelligence is the ability make predictions of the future. This is very simplified, it'll make more sense in the book. Even if you don't agree with him, it still should be rather obvious by now (2005!) that throwing unbelievably complex algorithms and astronomical number of computer cycles is NOT the way to go for developing real intelligence.

Re:Exactly the type of development I've spoken of

[cr0sh]

He argues that intelligence is the ability make predictions of the future.

Sorta - I think you missed the main point:

Those "predictions" are based on matching patterns already "stored" in the neural network matrix. Basically, by his theory, our brains (at least the frontal lobes) take an input, and match that pattern via neural network cascades, which are feedback loops which hook into the motor system, hearing, visual, etc.

Among other things, this theory easily explains synesthesia - that is, the "crossing" of senses - in most people, it rarely happens, but some people it happens to all the time. Imaging smelling the color purple! Actually, this happenned to me once - to me, the color purple smells/tastes like artificial "purple" grape flavor. Ok, it was a fluke - I was drinking said soda, and thought to myself as soon as I drank it, "purple". Purple in my mind is so wired with the same flavor/color as artificial grape, that seeing or smelling or tasting one, leads to the other.

Same with how smells can trigger memories and emotions - his theory makes a lot of sense. So, the "predictions" of the future are merely pattern playbacks in our minds based on prior patterns laid down for other similar things...

Re:Exactly the type of development I've spoken of

[Anonymous Coward]

The other theory is that the sense of smell and the memory trigger parts of the brain are adjacent to one another and could quite easily form neuronal linkages. It's a matter of accidental proximity rather than a wonder of the neural synthesis.

Re:Exactly the type of development I've spoken of

[antoy]

Don't worry, I haven't missed the point, I just oversimplified a weeee bit. I'm sorry if I confused some people. I'm still reading though, but his theory does make a lot of sense. A lot more sense than years of engineering for a computer than can walk.

Not that his theory being true would make things dramatically easier, but I think it's that first step towards creating intelligence. A framework, as he puts it. Still, I haven't finished the book, and I intend to go through all criticisms of it before I put any more energy to it.

Re:Exactly the type of development I've spoken of

[csoto]

Sounds interesting. I will check this out in the morning. Thanks!

It's a playlist

[Ivop]

Try: mplayer -playlist rtsp://nsfvideo.nomex.net/press_releases/bipedal.s mi

New old goal

[eamonman]

DDR might be fun, but I say watching it freestyle to Snaps' "The Power" would be FAR cooler.

heh

[Illserve]

You haven't met the guy who lives upstairs from me, have you?

One small step for Robots...

[Incoming9000]

...one giant leap towards human enslavement.

My fellow night elf hunters...

[supmylO]

We now have a use for 'Track Humanoids.' *Snickers*

Re:Any way to see the video without Real Player 10

[pcmanjon]

" I haven't tried this particular file, but Media Player Classic plays Real stuff ok"

You didn't read his post. he said: "And when I try the link in MPlayer, it immediately says "Stream EOF detected"."

MPlayer is a linux only app, suggesting he uses linux. Media Player Classic is windows only.

It won't work in linux.

Re:Any way to see the video without Real Player 10

[mattmatt]

My bad.

Robotic Ministry of Silly Walks cannot be far now!

[cbelt3]

Contact Her Majesty's Government !

Silly Walks Director: Mr. Stagback, the very real problem is what I find out. You see, there's defense, education, housing, health, social security, silly walks. They're all supposed to get the same. But last year the government spent less on Silly Walks than they did on industrial organisation. We're supposed to get 348 millions pounds a year to cover our entire Silly Walks proposal. Coffee?

Silly Walks Applicant: Yes, please.

Silly Walks Director: Hello, uh, Mrs. Twolumps, uhm, could we have two cups of coffee, please.

Mrs. Twolumps: Yes, Mr. Teabag.

Silly Walks Director: Mad as a hatter. You see, the Israelis they have a man who can take his own left leg off and swallow it with every alternate step, whereas the Japanese, cunning electronically obsessed little...

Re:$30M for more insect robots? Sounds like pork.

[reg106]

What robot meant originally? You mean "worker" in Czech? From the play?

In the robotics lab where I worked, the generally accepted definition for robot was "a programmable source of work," where work is in the physics sense of forces and movement. This definition will include most things you would think of as robots, but would also include devices such as automatic breadmakers. I find this a useful, if broad, definition.

Industrial robots have a long history and are generally accepted to be robots (at least by people who call themselves roboticists). Industrial robots are often autonomous, but rarely make decisions or have AI of any kind. (An industrial robot is a more general device than special purpose automation. The manufacturing line for pampers will be automated, but does not necessarily contain robots.)

Under the above definition, the passive walkers described in the Science paper would not be considered robots because they are not programmable. But the powered walkers (basically a passive walker with an actuator or two added somewhere) would indeed be considered robots.

Aw come ON...

[cliffiecee]

"...as little energy as one-half the wattage of a standard compact fluorescent light bulb."

Would it have been so hard to just put in a frickin' number!?

Geez!!

Re:Aw come ON...

[Rick.C]

"...as little energy as one-half the wattage of a standard compact fluorescent light bulb."

Would it have been so hard to just put in a frickin' number!?

The writer must have misplaced his list of exactly which numbers have the ability to frick.

Fighting robots

[chroma]

I wonder which of these would win in a fight?

spy shit

[spoonyfork]

Unlike other robots that have to power every move, these three save energy by letting gravity do a lot of the work. Like humans, they pick up their feet and just let 'em drop.

Heh, mind your example subjects. Only American's kick their legs when they walk. If you knew that well.. then you knew that. ;)

Re:All humans are men, but not all men are humans

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree; I think Comic Book Guy sucks stinky wizzleteats. I'ld rather be watching the babes in tights of The Justice Friends, rather than get off my fat lazy ass and establish justice in my own courts. Bring the tits and ass of Minerva's daughter, Wonderwoman! wo-man...hehe, the parent poster didn't list that one. hehe

Am I a human?

[al912912]

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

Last time I changed a diper I got peed; my kid brother cannot solve certain equiations and he cannot program a computer; I'm sure as hell many slashdotters can't fight efficiently.

Is the problem my brother is young, What do you make of a Down Sindrome person? Can the program a computer? will they ever can?

Any way, I'm very good with computers, and I think in that specific area I can serve my society. Hail my queen ant!

Can Asimo do the moonwalk?

[al912912]

set high standards for your projects man!

Several different approachs.

[WindBourne]

If you are doing a real flyer, you would need huge wings as the atmospere is thiiiinnnn. But, use some helium/hydrogen in a collapsiable wing, combined with small rockets, it is very doable. Think in terms of a vtol aircraft such as the british harrier. Small wings.

Of course, a small number of ballons with small camera might produce some very intersting results. While we would not have good control over where they went, they would be close enough to the surface to take some very good pix that could be relayed from sat. above.. These ballons could then be landed with small amounts of equipment, but obviously, this is more of a serindipity approach to checking the surface.

Forget the Sci-Fi

[Anonymous Coward]

[Meeting log]
What we need is a little engineering brainstorm:
Let's define the general tasks of robot creator regarding movement:
1) Do we want to make it be human-friendly?
2) Do we want to make it suitable for movement in the city?
3) Do we want to make it move off-road?
4) Do we want it to climb Mount Everest even faster than humans?

Well, for 1) and 2) two legs are sufficient. Wheels/belts can do the job too. And control electronic can be quite simple (compared to 3,4)

In order to 3) and 4), we need to equip the robot with another limbs. Hands could be useful for this purpose.
Six foot, beetle-like machine, could do the job. But it doesn't satisfy 1).
So, the consideration will be: machines in contact with humans shall be equipped with legs and hands.
Sixlegged machines will be sent to Mars to investigate. And for mountain climbing. And to attend on GWB.
[End of log]

One thought I was having on the subject...

[NeuroManson]

I was pondering robotics the other day, and came to the conclusion that, for the most part, we're going at it all wrong.

I was thinking that we should instead build each limb as a seperate subsystem, with the nessesary computing equipment built into the limb, along with the power supply.

One thing about all ambulatory animals, is that the weight is equally distributed throughout the body. It isn't about figuring out how to balance all the weight in a torso, it's about using weight to act as counterweights, along with sensing the nessesary force needed to move each of those weights.

Another part of it is reflex movement. We think of it as simple because we learned how to do it with almost no effort long before basic skills. For a computer, this is something that requires a huge amount of processing time.

However, a "main brain" that has to interpret data from multiple individual "sub brains" would have an easier time, since the sub brains would process specialized data.

An arm would process just the data for that arm, a leg would process just the data for that leg, etc. Instead of the main brain having to process reams of data from every sensor on the body, it would have to only process the sub brains' inputs. Consider it as a biological analogy for USB.

Re:One thought I was having on the subject...

[Baron_Yam]

On the weight issue - the lighter the limb, the less energy required to move it. That is why fast animals have next to nothing in their legs (think deer or horses).

The torso mass keeps moving in an almost straight line, requiring little energy to maintain its momentum against drag. Legs actually reverse direction every stride, which takes time and energy.

Passive walkers exist since the 90s. So ... BORING

[RealNecator]

Passive walkers exist since the 90s (or even before).
A quick googeling gave me the following:
http://agrosy.informatik.uni-kl.de/wmc/overview.ph p?id=37

And an almost passive construction:
http://agrosy.informatik.uni-kl.de/wmc/overview.ph p?id=71

Saving Energy ...

[foobsr]

Unlike other robots that have to power every move, these three save energy by letting gravity do a lot of the work. Like humans, they pick up their feet and just let 'em drop.

Thinking of martial arts, until now I believed that it requires a lot of practicing to take advantage of the gravitation field indeed.

CC.

Hmm...

[PMOnoTo]

"And hey, why not send them to Mars to look for those microbes?"

They should better look for weapons of mass destruction there...

A bit of the old ./ Arrogance?

[HeghmoH]

Likewise, every time we have a science story on slashdot, there's a hundred Monday-morning quarterbacks who know nothing about the field but feel free to criticize the scientists' approach anyway.

Had to be said

[Eradicator2k3]

From TFA: "Today, scientists introduce three humanoid striders"

Might I add that these striders are no mere rangers?

Grateful for our Falling Robot Overlords

[Domo-Sun]

Wow science, that's great, but what if one of these falling robots falls on your dog? Then what?

Avoiding things is the one advantage to calculated robot moving, unless they make them able to avoid things as they fall, but then they potentially will stumble into something else valuable.

Listen to us

[Staff.ie]

"Spider robots", "Robots using gravity to walk", "Human robots on mars". We really have no clue. In years to come, people will be looking back at discussions like this and laughing. We are just at the beginning of robotics, yet here we are speculating about the future - probably totally incorrectly. Remember in your history class you used to read about people hundreds of years ago talking about science and their predictions of the future? Remember how ridiculous they sounded? This is probably us now.

Microbes, nothn'!

[PeanutGallery]

And hey, why not send them to Mars to look for those microbes?

Or if you were held hostage by a deranged supercomputer you could, like, program one to kill you, and leave behind only a series of vague clues in the form of a hologram...

That flick rocks!

err.. advertising post?

[Anonymous Coward]

The parent post is advertising..... how odd..

Hidden message

[PingPongBoy]

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. - Robert A. Heinlein

If computer intelligence is realized, it can improve itself by writing programs. Now strip away all the baggage like butcher a hog and cook a tasty meal, and reduce the idea to a computer that can program a computer. This is a basic element of intelligence: a being that can formulate and execute a virtually unlimited number of sequences of instructions that take advantage of a fairly powerful machinery or computational mechanism, including the ability to control with some precision and accuracty the being's output of such sequences.

A neural net can be built to exhibit this behavior. With enough nodes the network can produce instructions from an instruction set. Add more neurons and tweak to acquire a machine that outputs a certain useful programs for certain inputs. Use a neural net to perform a feedback function by evaluating programs according to goal achievement, resource usage, timeliness, etc.

Neural networks are useful for handling large inputs such as sensory data as well as information written in a language. So build a feedforward contraption of neural nets that produce programs and a feedback set of neural nets to evaluate programs. This network can be scaled up and adjusted. Add CPUs to execute the programs. Furthermore, allow the programs to access the neural nets via the inputs and the adjustable weights. This is a readily achievable plan for a neural net that has the potential to improve itself via computer programming.

Re:Any way to see the video without Real Player 10

[fredzouille]

" MPlayer is a linux only app "

No, MPlayer isn't a Linux only app, it works on many Unices, MacOS X and MS Windows. Latest version (1.0pre6) is available here for MS Windows : http://www.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/win32-bet a/

This book alone is not enough...

[cr0sh]

I believe that this book is one part of a whole toward a successful AI. I have wrote many times here on /. about the books I have read, and what I believe can come from reading them, understanding them, and relating them to each other. So, look at my past comments, do some searching on /. for the books (ie, things like AKNOS, Linked, Out of Control, etc)...