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."

Comments

videos

[mcguyver]

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, ;)

Re:Um, does anyone else see the rod?

[rjstanford]

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 ... that's the hardest thing to figure out about fluid bipedal motion!

Probably just to stop the experiment needing a shitload of space without worrying about explicit turning. Of course, you could have just quoted the entire paragraph (two sentences) - bold face added:

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.

Doesn't seem quite so problematic now, does it?