Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
What about a roundhouse kick?
Oh yeah, well I saw a PBS special where a no legged robot could maintain its balance when kicked. I think it was disguised as a garbage can or something. So that's even cooler!
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.
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.
-- All your booze are belong to us.
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.
... "Kick my shiny, metal ass."
UTF-8: There and Back Again
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.
The enemies of Democracy are
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.
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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