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Balancing Robot Can Take a Kicking
BotKicker writes "A Japanese team has created the first full-size humanoid robot that won't fall over if you push it. A video shows it staggering and regaining balance after blows from a researcher. Being able to withstand shoves and kicks is essential if robots are to truly be our buddies, they reckon. 'The robot's balancing ability depends on its joints. For one thing they are never kept rigid, even when standing still, meaning they yield slightly when the robot is pushed. Force sensors within each joint also work out the position and velocity of the robot's centre mass as it moves around. Control software rapidly figures out what forces the robot's feet need to exert on the ground to bring it back into balance, and tells the joints how to act.'"
I saw a show on the Discovery channel over a decade ago showing a one legged robot that could recover it's balance when kicked.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
What about a roundhouse kick?
I for one welcome our balancing overlords.
That's handy but come on, if I gave it a full force running, mid air, knee extension kick that you use on a person's sternum in martial arts to knock them clear off their feet, I doubt it could stay standing. Of course they didn't make it to combat standard but...if they made it tase me before I got to it when it detected I was about to kick it, now that would solve the problem lol
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welcome our new never falling robot overlords.
If these guys tend to kick and shove their buddies, it may explain why they have so much time to work on robots....."Finally, a friend I can kick who won't think I'm a jerk"
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
Unlike the robot, the server seems to have been unable to cope with the kicking it got after getting a good hard slashdotting.
Evil people are out to get you.
Please keep in mind: This is simply the first man sized robot to do this. Several other robots are capable of this feat, some even have legs the size of men, just no top. So it is a step, not a breakthrough or revolution.
So basically, -1 troll/offtopic is really slashdots way of saying "I hate that you thought of something before me."
Sounds like someone's been playing too many violent video games.
This is obviously a massive step forward - the major stereotypical problem with robots in the past has been their instability and slow shuffling. This opens the door to having them perform tasks like bend over and pick up weighty objects, which would have probably been impossible without this balancing mechanism.
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Sometimes, staggering backwards is the wrong choice.
For example, you're standing on the sidewalk with your back to traffic. Someone bumps into you. You will do everything in your power *not* to stagger backwards in this situation -- you might reach out to grab something solid, like a signpost, a trash can, or the hand of someone with a body mass comparable or greater than your own. But you wouldn't reach for the hand of a child -- you'd just end up pulling them into the street with you.
You've got a split second to make this choice, as well. Make it wrong, and you may die, or even take someone else with you.
This would be a lot easier if they just made the robots in the shape of a bop bag.
... "Kick my shiny, metal ass."
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That video will probably be one of the first exhibits in the Case for the Robot Uprising. As you can clearly see, not only did humans from the beginning view robots as being menial servants that we can push around and bully, we actually engineered them so that we could shove and kick them at will without interfering with their service of us! They're designed to be abused!
In an cruel twist, it is this same ability that will make our punches and kicks ineffectual for defending our fleshy bodies from the robots when they turn against us.
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I suppose this is the first exception to Fudd's Law: If you push something hard enough, it will fall over...
On the other hand, it may just raise the energy barrier, so to speak.
When push comes to shove. I'm sure this robot will be here to protect us; the stairs of knowledge await!
Don't they realize that they have just given up our one advantage that we had on robots?
Ability to not fall down the stairs.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
The robot in the video sure looked like he was just waiting for the researcher to turn his back.
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First, why wouldn't I reach for the hand of a child (if that was the closet/best option)? If the issue is I'm falling back beause my center of mass is behind me, I only need to shift the mass, not overcome the momentum of my movement. Yes, I will pull the child towards me, but it may be enough of a shift in mass to pull myself towards the child as well.
Second, this is likely on of those less-is-more situations. If I'm on the side of a busy street, and not on the edge of a tall cliff, I'm probably better off just taking a small step back to steady myself. In fighting to keep my feet in front of me, I leave my body without support, and end up falling into traffic.
Third, if I make a habit of putting myself into situations where the slighest loss of balance may result in a life-or-death situation, maybe the gene pool will be better off if I do fall into traffic.
There's a few reasons why people want to design a humanoid robot. First, there's no need for translation. For Boxy Robot, how's it going to get up stairs? The walker one can do that no problem. Secondly, a robot on wheels isn't as able to deal with changes in terrain as a walker would be. Adaptability is much higher when you have legs than when you have wheels.
I recently met an MS sufferer that has been completely confined to a wheelchair for years because the nerves in her legs don't fire properly, even though she has sensation and can tell when she is not balanced.
So take this so called "robot" technology, and make it something that becomes sort of like a small exo-skeletal muscle system. Call it robotically controlled balance assistance, or whatever you want.
End result, she's out of the chair. In the real world. Good, no?
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I wrote about the i-1 on my blog; there's some pictures there that might be interesting.
http://janneinosaka.blogspot.com/2007/11/i-1.html
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Or shove old ladies down the stairs.
Cue in " terrible secret of space " !
Do you have stairs in your house?
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Among all jokes, it seems that the most interesting part has been missed.
Half way through the movie, the robot is pushed through its left side. It eerily performs an extremely human like side-stepping movement to rebalance itself.
I have been replaying the sequence over and over again for last 15 minutes, it's the most un-fuckin'-believable amazing foot movement I've seen in bi-pedal robots!!!
- mritunjai