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STriDER, a Three-Legged Walking Robot
Roland Piquepaille writes "In a short article, New Scientist reports that researchers at Virginia Tech University have developed a tripedal experimental robot. With its three legs, this robot, named STriDER — short for 'Self-excited Tripedal Dynamic Experimental Robot' — is actually more stable than 2- or 4-legged robots. As said another researcher, 'It's like a biped with a walking stick.' This robot is intended to deploy sensors and cameras in difficult-to-access areas."
Interesting concept, except that with the way it moves, it can't really walk in a straight line.
Because it swings one leg outward from the rear to the front, it's always going to essentially be side-stepping a width that's in direct proportion to the length of its legs. If it starts in a position like <|, with two legs up front and one in the rear, and then swings the rear leg outward to position |>, the next step has to be to the left or right sides. It could every other stuff in reverse and zig-zag for the net effect of a straight line, but it wouldn't work well for very narrow spaces unless it could dynamically adjust the height of its legs.
Nevertheless, I'd love to see one run at some point!
JOURNALIST: Quickly, one after the other, four of the Fighting Machines appeared. Monstrous tripods, higher than the tallest steeple, striding over the pine trees and smashing them. Walking engines of glittering metal. Each carried a huge funnel and I realized with horror that I'd seen this awful thing before.
A fifth Machine appeared on the far bank. It raised itself to full height, flourished the funnel high in the air - and the ghostly, terrible Heat Ray struck the town.
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
Actually, it looks a pretty efficient way of using gravity to move. It's not much different than how you learned to walk, except that the robot keeps two legs stable instead of your one. In fact, the talking video chick says "this novel tripedal gate is highly energy efficient."