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Robot Unravels the Mystery of Walking

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the ha-ha-i've-been-walking-for-years-now dept.

manchineel writes with a link to a BBC article on the lessons learned from a project in locomotive robotics. 'Runbot', as it is known, is the result of a modern technology combined with a 1930s physiology study into human locomotion. The study found that walking is largely an automatic process; we only engage our brains when we have to navigate around an obstacle or deal with rough terrain. "The basic walking steps of Runbot, which has been built by scientists co-operating across Europe, are controlled by reflex information received by peripheral sensors on the joints and feet of the robot, as well as an accelerometer which monitors the pitch of the machine. These sensors pass data on to local neural loops - the equivalent of local circuits - which analyse the information and make adjustments to the gait of the robot in real time."

3 of 134 comments (clear)

  1. runbot homepage by ceroklis · · Score: 5, Informative

    The researcher's page on the robot http://www.cn.stir.ac.uk/~tgeng/research.html. Check the videos they are quite amazing.

    1. Re:runbot homepage by Animats · · Score: 2, Informative

      Also, here's the cited paper.

      This isn't that novel. It's very much like Randall Beer's insect work from a decade ago. It's hierarchical control using controllers built from control blocks the authors call "neurons". It's a pure reflex system, with no explicit prediction.

      Also notice that it's a planar biped, constrained so that it can't fall sideways.

      There's better locomotion and balance work going on in Japanese hobbyist robotics.

      It's good that people are working on this stuff again. There was some impressive work in the 1980s and early 1990s, then a big lull.

  2. Re:Fastest walking human? by jrumney · · Score: 2, Informative

    The Olympic record is 1:19 for 20km. That is in the same ballpark as a 6 minute mile, and what the website quotes for fastest human (4 - 5 leg lengths per second). The point is that other robots have all been under 1.5 leg lengths per second, so this is a big leap if leg lengths per second is a valid measurement of performance. Previous robots have had much longer legs though, so if this one doesn't scale up, then it still might not beat them.