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Two Legged Robot Sets Speed Record
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers in Germany and Scotland have made the fastest two-legged robot yet (for its size) called RunBot. It is controlled by a simple program that mimics the way neurons control reflexes in humans and other animals. From the article: 'We wanted to show that a very simple system with a simple neuronal controller could walk in a natural manner - and fast,' says Florentin Wörgötter, from the University of Göttingen in Germany. The story also features couple of videos of RunBot in action."
How many leg-length per second can the "average" human achieve?
I would like to know if it can outrun a Cheetah.
I've heard of feet per second, but legs?
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
I'll feel safe as long as I can still outrun our robot overlords.
Two mpeg videos show RunBot (4.9M) walking at a steady speed and (15M) gradually learning to walk more rapidly.
;)
Get'em while they're hot,
so, at what time do those legs open? :D
...I won't be impressed until a two-robot team wins a three-legged race.
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
I love how it busts right at the end of video 1. They should have a sensor on its head to sensor when the head touches the ground.. . That should trigger a Homer-esque "D'oh!"
but how fast can it run from the cops?
Slashdot posts a story saying somebody made a robot that runs really fast, why the heck doesn't it say how fast the thing runs in the summary? Eh? EH???
anyone have a video of the little guy in action?
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
It can walk but can't maintain verticality? Is it there to stabilize it? That's pretty lame if they don't even have to worry about keeping its center of balance
My work here is dung.
This is a cool little robot - a nice example of how much you can do with a simple design. However, I think it is a bit premature to declare that it has set any biped records, seeing as how it can't balance on two legs yet.
The two women who actually read /. are hoping scientist don't put so much effort into their robots finishing quickly when they produce a three-legged bot.
"but it may not scale up - but I'll be interested to see if it does." -- Russ Tedrake
The approach may not scale up?
Has the guy heard of humans? Ostriches? Kangaroos? Bipedal locomotion doesn't scale indefinitely (square-cube problem unfortunately), but biological approaches to controlling two-legged walking (and running and bounding) will definitely scale up to lots of "useful" sizes.
And if he's criticizing their current algorithms... of course they won't control a robot 10x larger, but that's just being pedantic. You'll need the bigger robot to figure it's own algorithms out (thus, their actual approach of an adaptive robot).
Regards,
Ross
This thing walks in a circle and is connected to a boom - it can't walk freely. All the legs have to worry about is front/back balance, and not side to side. Of course, making that obvious in the headline or summary would make the article seem much less interesting, and we couldn't have that, now could we?
You don't have to be faster than the killer robot.
You just need to be faster than that any other humans you happen to be with.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
They should have a sensor on its head to *detect* when the head touches the ground.
OMG that's so totally cheating!!!!1!11one!1!!
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
Hah! In the first video it sounds exactly like the wrong trousers.
A comment on police racism, not a slur on black folks.
Althought called "runbot" it's actually a speedwalkerbot. at least that's all the videos show. At no point are fewer than one foot on the ground.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Luckily, robots can spell Switzerland correctly.
Didn't Qurio claim to be the world's first "running" robot?
I always thought Qurio was great: push him over and no matter what orientation he ends up in, he can get back to his feet again. I think it's not too far away that after they get up off the ground, they come over and slap you for pushing them over...
As to the whole walking thing - it's a fascinating topic I think:
1) walking is a controlled fall, the only thing preventing you from going face-first into the pavement is that next foot fall.
2) Maximum cruising speed is attained in a single revolution. No other animal or engine can claim the same (AFAIK).
How many escape pods are there? "NONE,SIR!" You counted them? "TWICE, SIR!"
How is it a 2-legged robot?
;p
Without the boom it will fall over, nor could it walk.
Of course it can't even STOP , that might be a minor issue for usefulness
Hurfy
Fastest man on 2 legs...while running down the aisle of the airliner anyways...
Call be back when it's untethered, has arms, and can stand itself back up after it trips. Then I'll be impressed. Until then, it's no more impressive than a bot on wheels.
C:\DOS
C:\DOS\RUN
RUN DOS RUN
It's never just a game when you're winning. - George Carlin
without all the advertising and click tracking from NS
http://www.ijrr.org/contents/25_03/abstract/243.h
Dang newbies.
And this is what Kevin Kelly says in his excellent book Out of Control (The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World). Start with small and dumb machines, follow nature and gradually build up the complexity. The efforts of creating one machine which does it all is going to fail.
They need to change run, to dance. Also, they need to include that it was rocking out to Mr. Roboto. DOMO ARIGATO MR ROBOT *FUUEEEEEWWWW**FUUEEEEEWWWW*
welcome the lack of any obvious "I for one welcome our new two-legged running robotic speed record breaker overlords" jokes so far. :P
"Words of wisdom: drop that zero and get with the hero" -- Vanilla Ice
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20050806/bob8. asp
Tad McGeer has been making similar walking robots since the eighties. I wonder if these guys did a proper literature search.
Another name that comes to mind is Mark Tilden. He was one of the first to point out that by mimicing natural processes, you greatly reduce the processing power needed. His robot insects use the music chips from greeting cards to control them.
That is teh creepiest freaking thing I have ever seen.
...will it run on Linux?
In all seriousness though, in the video it looked like the robot wasn't balancing itself. Instead it was attached to an arm coming from the center of the circle the robot was walking in to keep it upright. I have to say that this will be a lot more impressive when they can pull this off without having to hold the robot's hand.
I am already getting bored with all these articles about robots, isn't there anything worthy going on in the IT world besides robots that can do human-like things?
I mean, my problem is, slashdot is getting boring! I need something to read about while I'm at work! How am I gonna be productive like that? Oh, wait...
IANA roboticist, but after I RTFA, it seemed like the point was to implement neural networks into more complex aspects of robotics. It seemed to be demonstrating that coding a (relatively) simple machine learning system allowed the robot to develop even an better walking algorithm than those written entirely by humans. As such, it was successful even with the rod.
If you build it, it will eat you. Anyone who who's even heard of "Science Fiction" knows that.
DATABASE WOW WOW
Well, since it was developed by Scots and Germans, one has to ask:
/Anonymous Godwin
Can it highland dance, and does it goose-step?
I didn't check the actual leg length/speed ratio for the "world record" thing... but is this really more impressive than Honda's untethered Asimo? Check this video:
k mh/index.html
http://world.honda.com/HDTV/ASIMO/New-ASIMO-run-6
The good news is that I think I can still outrun it. For now.
Women don't like three legged robots?
...And in the news of the bizarre, a robot is suing the entire human race for infringing upon its patented method of forward locomotion. While the ruling on the case is still up in the air, officials are suggesting people purchase Segways or wheelchairs, just in case.
It's the Wrong Trousers!
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
RunBot? Please, who came up with that? Shouldn't it be called GoBot?
If a baby duck is a "duckling," why would anyone want to eat "dumplings?"
It could also be called...
FARMING.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
But can they build him faster? stronger?
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
This thing walks in a circle and is connected to a boom - it can't walk freely. All the legs have to worry about is front/back balance, and not side to side. Of course, making that obvious in the headline or summary would make the article seem much less interesting, and we couldn't have that, now could we?
Accepted. But that wasn't really the point of the research. If you RTFA and RTFWP (white paper), these guys are more interested in neuroscience. So what they did was design a simple mechanical system and a simple controller that both mimic the actual physical/physiological function of human legs. Balancing has alot to do with the structure of the foot and our ability to shift weight and is more of a dynamics issue. What these guys did was gait generation, which sounds simple (one foot after the other), but when you sit down and start trying to work out the details, its not so easy.
A similar (theoretical) study which actually addresses balancing (this time for insects with six legs):
J.E. Seipel, P. Holmes and R.J. Full (2004) Biological Cybernetics 91, 76-90. Dynamics and stability of insect locomotion: a hexapedal model for horizontal plane motions.
m0nstr42.blogspot.com
I'm curious why no one brought up other possible uses of this idea. While it is obviously far from perfected this might be a nice technology for the disabled or injured to have. Being able to appear to walk normally and move about would be really nice. I know that there have been a lot of injuries in Iraq involving legs and other movement impairing injuries.
Yes but can it moon walk? Though I am not sure I want to see moonwalking again anyway.
Sit... Speak.... Shake.... Good Dog!
So far, just about all the posters have missed the point- and a good deal of the information.
The point of the exercise isn't to make something that'll fetch your slippers and run to the store. It's simplifying things to something closer to the basics and emulating nature. Two sensors, simple leg servos, some rather simple, clever programming, and it walks. In fact, it can actually "learn" how to speed itself up as it goes. Compare the complexity of most any of the other of the walking robots, which require sensors and servos up the wazoo -- and a hefty amount of computing -- to do their tricks; like walk in a straight line without falling over.
RTFA before you complain about how it's cheating. If you'd bother to watch the video, you'll see the boom isn't holding it up. It trips over a block and falls flat on its CPU at the end of the first mpeg.
http://www.ijrr.org.nyud.net:8090/contents/25_03/a bstract/geng/extension1.mpeg
a bstract/geng/extension2.mpeg
http://www.ijrr.org.nyud.net:8090/contents/25_03/
I just AC 'cause I don't need to karma whore
"RunBot currently walks around the edge of a circular room and is connected the centre of the room by a boom. But Wörgötter plans to develop a freestanding version next, and thinks it should be straightforward because the boom has only a small influence on its ability to walk."
This whole thing is not impressive. That thing would never walk on it's own if it didn't have that arm holding it up. I think I've seen things like that made out of wood and sold at craft fairs...
But once arrived in Switzerland, they can't go fast anymore, because there is a self-righteous slowpoke driving in the left lane holding up all the traffic.
oops, wrong thread...
but you should see it toss the "caber"
Härter. Schneller. Geh ans Limit. Übertriff dich selbst. Lerne, deinen Arsch zu meistern.
"I'm going to f***ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f***ing kill Google"
So what? I think, what the majority of Slashdot-users would like to know is, Does it run Linux?
I change my sig often.
ARG!! You beat me to it! *shakes fist*
Chums up, let's do this!
And to think RoboCop was the ultimate in walking, talking and human beating when it comes to robot tech.
P.S
Don't you just love how Zoidberg pronounces "robot" - robutt ?!!
Oh, God! I watched that little thing go and all I could think of was Wallace & Grommit's "The Wrong Trousers". I laughed and laughed and laughed and, oh, all right, I know, that's enough.
Here is a video of a 4-leg robot made by Bosten Dynamic, it is clearly better than any 2-leg robot. http://www.bostondynamics.com/dist/BigDog_Feb-26-2 006.wmv
Yeah, but how many library of congress lengths per half-hour is this?
I won't be impressed by "fast robots" until they build Quickman.
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