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New BigDog Robot Video
John860 writes "The US company Boston Dynamics has released an amazing new video of its quadruped robot BigDog. The highlight of the video (at 1:24) shows how the robot starts slipping on ice, almost falls several times, but finally regains its balance and continues walking. The video also shows the robot's ability to cope with different types of terrains, climb and descend steep slopes, and jump. Two years ago, the older version of BigDog was already able to climb slopes, keep its balance after a strong kick, and walk on rough terrain like stones, mud, and snow. The new version weighs 235 lbs and can carry a payload of up to 340 lbs, a factor of 4 better than its predecessor."
The US company Boston Dynamics has released an amazing new video of its quadruped robot
The walking motion is much like a goat. A goat, see?
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Hafez, you get the shipment of Korans from Amazon yet?
Yeah, but it was delivered by this weird mechanical goat thing that buzzed like a swarm of bees in a poppy field.
Hmm. I believe my RealGoat delivery has arrived! Allahu Ackbar!
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=mmVaLp8icoU
Uck you too, buddy!
Time to break out all the 'robotic overlords' jokes.
Does this "dog" like peanut butter?
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
I saw the video a few days ago. The most impressive part for me was when this guy kicked the machine, and it struggled to find its (not it's, you misspellers!) balance back. Look at the legs go! It looks so real it's (it is) amazing! The part where it climbed the rubble was also impressive. It looks like the thing has eyes that it uses to find out where it should put its feet.
-- Cheers!
The only practical applications of this technology are Aibo-like robotic pets, alpine rescue/relief assistants (like St. Bernards of old), and military weaponry.
The two posts so far talking about any of this are modded down.
I guess we're just harshing the moderators' robotic overlord buzz.
Is anyone else creeped out by how natural the movements of this robot are? Maybe it's the lack of a head and the ominous buzz-of-death, I don't know. As I recall, there's some theoretical curve for robots where the human acceptance of a robot dramatically drops at a sweet spot as reality is approached and doesn't rise until reality is achieved. This robot definitely falls in that zone for me.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
It reacting to a kick was so lifelike I wanted to call Peta. I frankly don't see the actual use in war, besides transporting things, I can't wait till they make toy versions.
BigDog totally fucking rules. I agree with the post that it looks like two guys in a dog suit.
That's really cool, but does anyone else find it kinda creepy in it's life-likeness?
I mean, when it was falling and slipping on the ice I caught myself feeling sorry for it.
this post is now diamonds!
Let's hope they use some of it to put a decent muffler on the thing. Kinda looks like Santa's Little Helper and Snowball in the Treehouse of Horror VIII... the back halfs
What?
The movements are so life-like that when you see it at a distance through the trees you immediately try to identify it as an actual animal - then, when it becomes clear that its profile is all wrong, the chill sets in.
Reminds me of the hunters from Half-Life 2.
One giant leap for Imperial walkers...
Bring it up here to Alaska. I'll believe in the technology when it walks from Fairbanks to Barrow. I'll even let them use bridges to get across the rivers.
Robot locomotion of that quality is probably one of the most difficult problems to solve - the robustness of that thing was quite impressive - it survived rubble, snow, ice, and a solid kick that sent it tumbling. I'd really like to know how they did it, if they just managed to perfect current techniques with enough DARPA money or came up with something new - I would imagine it required some very accurate sensors and actuators, and a super-high-precision inverse-kinematics solver. If they can couple that together with a super-accurate local navigation system - which I imagine would be the easy half in comparison - then they've got a huge platform to launch consumer-grade robots if they get to a low enough price (and they do something about the noise). Maybe I will have a robot butler in my lifetime, but it looks like the military gets their mules first.
In Soviet Russia YOU are robot dog's overlord.
Crap. What did the new CSS do with the "Post anonymously" option??
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ExVocE2KXTA seriously dawg this goat robot shit is fukkin creepy dog it reminds me of hunters bro i know hunters bro
wow, it's like seeing some ancestor of the robots from Metal Gear Solid 4:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f07ZpXe8TU
This is a pretty cool tech demo, but at the moment, its battlefield utility is zero. That two-stroke engine buzz is going to alert every bad guy for miles around.
Since it needs to be able to exert pretty big forces very quickly, I doubt they're going to lower the power requirements, so I highly doubt they're going to be able to use a quieter power source like batteries or fuel cells. Nothing beats the power-to-weight ratio of internal combusion.
Me, I'd go with a real live mule instead for all applications you'd use this in. Same payload capacity, not much bigger, totally silent, self-refuelling, costs $hundreds rather than $hojillions.
skynet is comming ;)
...until it humps your leg, or pees on the floor, or chases the robot cat.
FAQs are evil.
This to me looks like it has the equivalent walking ability of a relatively newborn animal. Robotics is definitely progressing to the point of rudimentary natural motor skills.
A decade or two from now with improvements in batteries allowing for stronger and faster motors along with an increased number of quicker processors and you'll have something that will truly resemble natural animal movement. It wasn't that long ago that the pinnacle of robotic movement was stiff and insect like.
> Me, I'd go with a real live mule instead for all applications you'd use this in.
I guess you've never heard of mules being stubborn...
Oh, I can't help quoting you because everything that you said rings true
Aside from the lack of a third pair of legs, the combinations of a pair of panniers at the front that look like a pair of compound eyes, the black colour scheme, the shape of its legs, and the incessant buzzing the thing emits, all came together and made me think of Brundlefly.
Creepy. But obviously highly sophisticated (or they found a simple rule and implemented it well).
There is no reason to use a robot to deliver an anti-tank round when a) the enemy doesn't use tanks and b) if he did, we have 46,000 cheaper, more reliable, and less risky ways of killing the tanks. Similarly, explosive robots have all the ROI of "firing a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hitting a camel in the butt"*, which we have been trying to get away from.
* Best Dubya line ever. http://www.snopes.com/rumors/bush.asp
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
I've heard that some US troop in Afghanistan use real mules for transport on patrol, since they can cover the terrain better than vehicles can but don't provide warning of your approach like helicopters do (and you can see things more easily from the ground).
If you're unable to nuke the site from the orbit (say, because your troops are there) you must get your hands dirty.
Say, the enemy has tunnels a'la Vietcong, or underground bunkers or such. You need to send a scout. Who will it be?
And it wouldn't be good if the robot gets captured, so a good self-destruction mechanism is in order.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
How many firkins represent those 340 lbs ? Please use good-old-standard measure units people ...
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A use that many people probably would consider much more appealing than military is to aid disabled people - that is, maybe it could be turned into a wheelchair replacement. There would be no need for ramps and many more places would become accessible.
Livestock needs to be taken care of every day, is much more maintenance-intensive than anything mechanical. It also can't be stowed in a container for easy long-range transport.
Yeah, because I left my IR goggles on my bunk.
Just callin' it like I see it.
The sound could also be used as a weapon, to damage enemy morale. The German StuKa bombers had sometimes air-powered sirens attached to their planes, to scare and frighten the civilians. This is also used in many computer games - you can't see the enemy, but you hear a whirring or buzzing sound and you know he's somewhere close.
And to add to your idea: don't use thousands of robots; just use thousands of tape recorders. Seriously: if those things can't be made stealthy, just hide the noise of the real one by using secondary sound sources.
-- Language is a virus from outer space.
I see it has a ton of real life applications if it can really behave this way. I wonder when we'll see this machines moving stuff around on super-markets, helping to load trucks, boats, and so on. And I guess its first real application will be somehow related to military use.
One application I think would be good for this type of device is during disasters. Think about it, if they are allowed to roam with supplies they could get into areas at night that would be too dangerous to send people.
I can also imagine them carrying cell phone capability besides food and medical. Let alone the fact that once if finds someone you know where they are too. Throw some thermal sensors in there and it might be able to scout the interior of partially collapsed structures to identify where people may be
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Me, I'd go with a real live mule instead for all applications you'd use this in. Same payload capacity, not much bigger, totally silent, self-refuelling
On the other hand, a mule can't be steered by remote control (well, not humanely) or be programmed to reach a pre-designated GPS coordinate and return after a certain time.
come back when you've learned to run.
Not that it isn't fascinating to watch the progress of technology in robotic locomotion, but I have to agree with some of the earlier posters: it's like watching a young calf learning to walk. That only makes it a slow pack mule for generally any terrain -- but it might be more practical to have specialized robotic mules that can handle a particular terrain very efficiently, rather than one quadruped robot with only evenly moderate transportation skills on all terrain. That said, I'm sure it will come in handy in the mountainous regions of Afghanistan and Waziristan.
But until this thing is capable of ambulatory sprints, there's just no room for it on a battlefield. My two cents.
fortune -s -o
I was amazed the first time watching this when the robot jumped the mat. It appeared that the bot was smart enough not only to jump the exact width of the mat, but also nimble enoug to plant it's front and back legs in exactly the same places. I watched through a second time, and while the legs do plant in the same spot, the mat is actually moved a few inches back while the robot is in mid-air.
FOXTROT UNIFORM CHARLIE KILO
That is just so friggin cool. Seeing stuff like this makes me regret spending 20 years sitting in various cubicles twiddling database bits...
I don't know how many of you have seen a newborn calf, but its gait and motion when it jumped (at 3:02 in the video) looked exactly like that of a very young calf.
Better known as 318230.
Profoundly creepy.
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You'd be surprised about the coordinates thing... Actual smugglers have been using actual mules for centuries (if not millenia). You walk them across the border carrying corn for tortillas, load them up with whatever inconspicuous and highly illegal packages you need ferried back and set them free. They'll make their way home under their own steam, eventually - while you cross the border back with nothing more interesting than keys and a couple dollars in your pockets.
The thing actually looks kind of creepy because it actually gives the impression of being /alive/.
:)
I hope they fix the annoying whine it makes though.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
I guess you've never been out there, starving...
It looks like they've put two donkeys and two flys into Jeff Goldblum's machine, and this is the result.
"RoboPuppy Mistreatment Alert! RoboPuppy Mistreatment Alert!"
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
>>For example, in a forrest situation, you might
>>be able to hear it, but you won't see it until
>>it's in a line of sight.
>Yeah, because I left my IR goggles on my bunk.
Wow, your IR goggles let you see through trees!
You sure those aren't xray specs?
I'm never walking home from the pub again. Thank you, DARPA.
If you haven't made a developer cry, you've wasted a day.
Braying is the right word. You can hear my parents' donkey from a long way off if he's decided to be noisy. Often, he just sounds off for no apparent reason. I can only guess whether he brays because he hears other equines, wants something, or just feels like saying 'here I am'! Simply put, I wouldn't count any given mule or donkey to be stealthy or biddable in a combat situation, or even in a non-combat emergency.
It may not be stealthy, but it's pretty damn freaky - it'd probably scare the hell out of the enemy. If the thing was lethal - maybe heat following, then the noise could be a psychological bonus, kinda like the German "buzz bombs" scared the Brits in WWII (although in that case the fear was when the noise stopped, because that meant the bomb was dropping rather than flying over you).
Just like Polish hussars maybe? Well, just make it fast and add wings. It should really scare your enemies. But after one or two sightings, they would be scared no more and would start to devise ways of destroying those robots.
Extreme Programming - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Developers
Unfortunately mules are too smart and have a "survival instinct" --- when one mule steps on a mine (or the in-coming rounds start) the mules will scatter ... this thing will just keep marching on as its other "pack members" are shredded. Yes it may change its tactical mode when under fire -- but it ain't gonna run away.
... I'll be really old and you young bucks will be dealing with "K9 patrols". Good luck with that - holy crap
Its gonna be a different world in 15-20yrs
Its not the years, its the mileage
Actually: send this robot to Mars.
Really.
If the developers can get a high enough reliability, this gizmo has wheels beat all hollow!
-Eldurbarn
Excuse the bad pun, but seriously people, somewhere far off the Founding Fathers are shaking their heads.
- Imagine a garrison of third-gen "Big Dogs" in every major US city, with assault rifles and thermal vision. "Don't like martial law or the new curfew? Stay inside after 8:00 pm and you'll be safe, citizen! The recession will be over soon."
- Like someone else said, shoot-to-kill orders on any human-sized heat signature.
- If the only remaining witness of an atrocity is a platoon of robots, and they have no video recording units installed, did the atrocity really happen?
- Once the cheap and "bloodless" bombing from afar is over, the REAL fighting takes place on the ground in the rubble. This is the infantry equivalent of the ariel bomber.
- Imagine waves of these floating over from China. Like the Sherman tank in WWII, you don't have to make them better than the opposition, just make them in large enough quantities.
If you don't see the use for these things, try thinking like a politician, The uses are ENDLESS. Too bad American schools don't teach Civics anymore.
Of course, I wasn't even aware PETA placed pets in homes. I thought PETA's stance was that keeping a pet is slavery, or something like that.
The best way to destroy these things is to use the gravity gun and a large object to catch the explosive flechettes they shoot at you and then fire them back.
Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands!
Yeah but with that sort of payload, they can outfit this one with armor.... can your mule take a bullet?
The noise can be taken care of with a nice advanced battery... the same ones being worked on for vehicles would work here as well.
Now that they have the mechanics worked out they should really fork the dev effort and put a nice veneer on that thing and get it a battery supply.. then it will truly be creepy... nearly silent, all black and shiny (I think it needs a black/blue/purple/green iridescent carapace)...
Good show to say the least.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Mars?
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Makes me think of the robot dog that chases Montag through the city.
That is awesome - but it scares the shit out of me.
Couple that thing with the weapons technology I have seen on other defense contractor "robotic soldiers" that can detect and kill from over a mile away.
But is it fluent in Baachi?
sounds like its filled with killer bees! ...nightmares. I will has them.
This is very nice work. It's good to see Raibert doing robotic locomotion again, and finally, with a big enough budget.
Back in the 1980s and early 1990s, Raibert headed the MIT Leg Lab, which produced the first legged robots with real balance control. Raibert started with one-legged hopping machines, to force the balance issue. His big insight was that balance is more important than gait. In 1992, he left MIT and did a startup, Boston Dynamics, and went off into simulation. Most of the simulations weren't dynamic, just kinematic. Now he's back to robotics, and dynamics, again.
I've worked on control of robot running on rough terrain. So I understand the problems. Watching the Big Dog video, I have a reasonably good idea of how it works. This is quite impressive. DARPA got its $40 million worth.
First, it has slip control, like automotive ABS, for its feet. The first insight on the hard cases for locomotion is that balance is more important than gait. The second is that slip control is more important than balance. The key to slip control is keeping the transverse forces at foot-ground contact below the point where the feet break loose. ("Inside the static friction cone", for those familiar with the terminology.) Watch it move on ice. The feet do not slip at all unless there's real trouble, as when someone kicks the thing. The transverse forces are being held below the break-loose point. Given the load on the foot, the actuator forces (hydraulic cylinders on Big Dog) must be coordinated to keep the transverse force below the ground coefficient of friction times the longitudinal load. Finding the ground coefficient of friction can be either trial and error (if it slips, reduce the value) or they may have actual slip sensing in the foot, like humans and animals. Humans, incidentally, tend to maintain a contact force about 20% above the break-loose point, as a safety margin.
Big Dog's reaction to a slip is to immediately raise the foot and go for a new foot placement. That's an emergency behavior, though; it's the prevention of slip that makes it work. Watch the robot's reaction when it slips on ice, and, once you know what to look for, you'll see how it does it. The first priority is to recover traction. As soon as a foot slips, it's lifted and placed in a new position. The second priority is to recover balance. As the robot starts to roll to the right, it executes a violent twist to the right and throws out the right front foot. It needs a foot position within the traction limits to provide the roll moment needed to recover balance, and it has a good enough planner to find one. Look at that sequence and ask yourself first "where does the foot need to be to get traction", then "where does the foot need to be to recover balance". Then you'll understand how it works.
Big Dog has, finally, true gaitless locomotion. Decades of locomotion research have focused on gait, foot sequence, "central patten generators", and similar mechanisms that deal with the easy cases. Wrong answer. The right answer is to think of legs as assets that can be deployed to maintain slip and stability criteria. It's very clear that Big Dog does this; it can use its feet (and knees!) as necessary. It's not constrained to a gait pattern at all.
There's a true dynamics predictor and planner in there. This is not just a reactive robot, like Brooks' little machines. Nor is it a straightforward ZMP ("zero moment point") stabilization system, like Asimo. (Think of ZMP as a generalization of center of gravity to include momentum.) There's a planner with a horizon of (I think) about two foot placements ahead, and it has "what if" internal simulation capability. That's why this robot moves so well. It can predict, at least approximately, what's going to happen for its next move, and plans on that basis. That's why its movement are so smooth. Without that, you'
The trouble is, in a forrest situation... life is like a box of chocolates.
You never know what your gonna get.
Nice to know that these kind of advancements in robot technology aren't just happening in the universities, rather advancing pretty quickly in the private sector. Looks like there is definitely a market and that's good news for the rest of us who want access to this kind of technology.
You may find my appearance and demeanor foolish, but it is you who plays the fool.
noticed they didn't show that. does that mean it can't do it ?
Based on the fact that it tends to fall on its knees on anything but the best surfaces, it would probably be more efficient with just knees.
Whoa boy. I'm not a scientist, but I can take a crack at a better comparison.
.2. According to the video, Big Dog weighs 235 pounds and can carry 340 pounds. This gives us a ratio of carry load to body weight (CL/BW) of 1.45.
First off, what is a mule? I'll bet that even the average Slashdot reader only has a vague idea. A mule is the result of mating a male donkey and a female horse. Mules have 63 chromosomes that are a mixture of one from each parent. A donkey has 62 chromosomes and a horse has 64.
In the last century, before tractors arrived en masse, mules in farming communities were common. US census figures for 1910 show a total of 4,101,00 mules in use around the country. So, yes, rural America was covered in mule shit.
In comparing a mule to Big Dog, we need a standard measure. A 'real live mule' might come in under 50 pounds for a toy mule to entertain children, to over 1500 pounds. Mules are usually in the range of 600 to 900 pounds, so let's take 900 pounds as a comparison.
The typical average carry weight for a mule in good shape is 20% of its own body weight. So assuming our 'real live mule' is well fed, well shod and has no pack sores, our mule might carry 180 pounds for us. This gives us a ratio of carry load to body weight (CL/BW) of
Carry loads are only one aspect of the comparison. In Big Dog's favor are many issues involved in caring for live animals in harsh conditions. Supplying enough water and feed, survival in extreme cold or extreme heat and treating the battlefield wounds of a live animal are all other elements to consider.
In the mule's favor, there are many unknowns: how long at maximum load on a tank of gas? What's the MTBF? And what do you do about that god awful noise? A mechanical engineer can probably give us a good idea about this, but I suspect that Big Dog needs frequent gas station breaks.
A final plus for mule may be that, should worse come to worse, you can always eat the mule; something soldiers have been doing for millennium.
Also, it is harder to take two broken livestock and make one working livestock.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
They took our jobs!
(with apologies to the South Park creators)
Every time it sees another robot dog, it immediately runs over and starts sniffing the other robot's behind.
The video was just now featured in the Austrian Television news broadcast! I have seen it on /. first of course :-)
Grettings from Austria!
And the diffuse cloud of warm exhaust? This can't hide behind a tree.
Just callin' it like I see it.
And this bad boy is in a race to the bottom of it.
Let's just hope they don't mount Kismet's head on this thing.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I think the only reason it's noisy is that it's a prototype. It probably has lots of other little problems we don't know about too (poor reliability is almost a given at this stage).
To make it quieter, all they need to do is use the same features that make cars quiet. With a bigger muffler, rubber motor mounts, and some acoustic insulation, it would be almost completely silent.
I noticed that the reaction time while it was recovering on the ice didn't seem much different from animals that I've seen slip. But you are right that the robot's precision is a lot better; its legs aren't getting in each other's way.
I wonder why the reaction time is about the same. Does the dynamics planner take that long to figure out what to do? Are the actuators slow enough so that it can't recover in a blur of leg motion? Or is that just the minimum amount of time stabilization can physically take?
i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
Link.
They were supposed to fly into Japanese cities and sleep in the eaves of houses before exploding and burning the place down. It worked quite well - to the extent that the bats managed to destroy most of the R&D facility. The success of the Manhattan Project ultimately ended the experiment... or did it?
Read Pynchon.
I recall reading that a significant problem in the field is getting injured soldiers back to safety or medical aid. That was a key problem this type of robot is meant to solve. It wouldn't have to be quiet or particularly fast. It just needs to be reliable and able to carry a soldier plus gear over uncertain terrain. It'd be a rough ride but better than stuck on the front line with your foot blown off.
pithy comment
My grandfather was an old cowboy and knew everything there was to know about packing stuff on mules and horses. He once worked for a friend who had a very lucrative contract from the Army to train Green Berets in the care and use of pack mules. They used them a lot in the 80's down in Central America, and I think they had some in Afghanistan also.
The "totally silent" part of your comment is usually true, but once in a while they will let fly with noisy braying that could give away a unit's position.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
You do understand the concept of research and development, right? If you have to ask if this is useful and then point out that at the moment it has some issues, then I think you've missed the point.
I live in Waltham, Ma and saw that robot on Prospect Hill. There were a bunch of guys with camera's controlling it remotely with a wireless laptop. I tried to take a picture but they said no. Really is a sick machine but loud when close to it. Scared the hell out of me when i first saw it. Very cool though. _Dan
What Senator/General is going to want to back a RL mule program tho? Only the one that wants to ba laughed back to the Agrarian Age.
Every Senator could be seen endorsing the Big Dog.
Actual utility is a secondary question anyway....perhaps not even relevant given then "right" buyer. Also don't forget that costs aren't really a concern - in our system, the taxpayers will (and do!) fund damn near anything.
-Matt