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Swinging Robot Excels At Wall-Climbing

Posted by timothy on from the creepy-in-the-good-sense dept.

Zothecula writes "Engineers have used a variety of techniques to create robots that can scale walls — the Climber uses a rolling seal, while the insect-like robots from SRI have caterpillar tracks with electro-adhesive properties. While such robots generally focus on speed, adhering to the wall and deciding how and when to move, the creators of a small robot named ROCR say it is the first wall-climbing robot to focus on climbing efficiently. And it does so by using the momentum of a tail that swings like a grandfather clock's pendulum."

12 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. Roboticus Superioritis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Pardon my Latin (I actually don't know any). Anyway, those of you familiar with Ray Kurzweil's writings know well his predictions of when robots (A.I.) will surpass then vastly outperform humans in intellectual powers.

    Well here's something that people may have overlooked. Robots may well surpass us sooner (a lot sooner?) in physical tasks. There was a demo of a small UAV that could fly up and "stick" to a wall using a maneuver impossible for a human controller to emulate (this is not the same as the MIT UAVs that can perch). Also, there were the Stanford (?) micro-helicopters which "learned" acrobatic stunts from their controllers and surpassed them. I heard of a unmanned car that could perform on of those crazy slide sideways into a parking space maneuvers. And then of course there is "Big Dog" which can take a flying kick and keep walking.

    It is interesting that most sci-fi movies portray robots as powerful, even indestructible but slow and sometimes clumsy. I can think of only one movie where they had a robot that was clearly Man's physical (as well as mental) superior ; the panther like military robot in "Red Planet". It stalked and "played" with its human prey, wounding but not killing in order to slow the group down (I seem to remember).

    Of course what's really going on is that this is just a side effect of Kurzweil's predictions. Motors and metals aren't getting much better but the processors and algorithms that run on them are. A good example might be from one of William Gibson's novels where ordinary drones and shrubbery sheering robots become tools of murder in the hands of the A.I.

    I no longer login because I feel that while attacking a company's products is fair game (specifically Apple), having stories singling out their users as "selfish" and unkind is not "news for nerds stuff that matters". Am I an Apple fanboi? Let's just say I've used NIX for decades (yes I'm old) and I'm not talking OS X.

    1. Re:Roboticus Superioritis by Farmer+Tim · · Score: 4, Funny

      And then of course there is "Big Dog" which can take a flying kick and keep walking.

      But not from Chuck Norris, and that's humanity's trump card.

      --
      Blank until /. makes another boneheaded UI decision.
    2. Re:Roboticus Superioritis by ikkonoishi · · Score: 4, Insightful

      We are seeing robots that can beat humans in certain tasks that they have been specifically designed for, but we have not yet even begun to have any robots that can adapt to different tasks on their own without being told. Also robots have a long way to go towards having the ability to survive without logistical support such as repairs, parts, or energy supplies. They are still just fancy complex tools which humans can use as they see fit.

    3. Re:Roboticus Superioritis by Dr_Barnowl · · Score: 3, Interesting

      most sci-fi movies portray robots as powerful, even indestructible but slow and sometimes clumsy

      I think the trend decreases as the ability to produce special effects increases ; clunky slow robots in movies appear to be caused by clunky slow SFX.

      Other notable exceptions to the clunky and slow law, excepting robots / cyborgs played by human actors ; the NX 6 class robot bodies in I, Robot, any robot in the Matrix trilogy, the robot spiders in Minority Report.

    4. Re:Roboticus Superioritis by stephanruby · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Motors and metals aren't getting much better but the processors and algorithms that run on them are.

      Micro-controllers are great for prototyping, but couldn't this particular example be made purely out of something that resembles the mechanism inside a wooden grandfather's clock (without any sort of processor whatsoever). There would still be the question of making the claws of course, but I'm leaving this question for someone else who's smarter than me. From the video, I'm not even sure how the claws work currently. Does anyone else think that the wall they're using is probably gritty? and that the robot is barely hanging on by the very tip of its fingernails/little claws?

      Of course, even if I'm right, which I'm not even sure I am, it wouldn't negate the rest of your thesis, especially with the many other types of robots that absolutely need processors to maintain their balance/movements.

    5. Re:Roboticus Superioritis by MRe_nl · · Score: 2, Funny

      Maybe we should build an army of Chuck Norris clones off-planet just in case of Big Dog becoming self-aware, Chancellor?

      --
      "Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
    6. Re:Roboticus Superioritis by ledow · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "I can think of only one movie where they had a robot that was clearly Man's physical (as well as mental) superior ; the panther like military robot in "Red Planet""

      Apparently never watched the Terminator movies then. Those robots were vastly superior to a human physical form, and only fail because of their vulnerability to large explosions, liquid nitrogen, liquid metal, multiple huge weapons and/or human intellect outwitting them.

      Robots are already, and have been for many years, physically superior to a human. That's why we use them for everything from packing sweets to building cars, to disabling bombs, to exploring other planets - they can do things we can never do as a species, and that's why we use them. Their advantages have ALWAYS come from absolute precision, perfect timing and movement, tireless working and the ability to do things quicker than any human ever could. If they were faster, stronger, more accurate, more consistent etc. than us, we'd never bother to use them at all. This is why you have "robots" in your kitchen - your blender, for instance. If I give you dough to mix, or something to chop you cannot ever do it faster than one of those could.

      Robots, by nature of their construction and engineering, have always and will always be "better" at a physical task they are designed for. That it's taken this long for a simple wall-climbing robot to catch up is kinda embarrassing because they aren't limited by muscle-strength, can be constructed of very strong but extremely light materials, don't need to keep themselves "alive" as well, and there's enormous tactile and sensor-based response to work from - most wall-climbing robots don't have to do much computer-vision work, if any. When I say to you "learn to climb this wall", ingenuity gets you so far but if you're lacking in muscle and holding a lot of weight, that's your biggest obstacle. With a robot, it's only a matter of cost and construction time. And our ingenuity applied to robots is only ever "make it work like a human" (so *WE* can understand how it does it), "make it work like some animal adapted for that task", or "that's not a robot, it's just a giant wheel that goes up the wall".

      Robots in a physical form have always and will always crush us, purely because of the materials they are made of. The beauty is, though, that they are only ever order-followers. They can only do what they are explicitly told to do, only sense what they are explicitly told to sense, and only react how they are explicitly told to react. They may "appear" human but they can't "think outside the box" even when the box is very simple. Otherwise, we'd already be dead.

    7. Re:Roboticus Superioritis by maxwell+demon · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Actually humans are to a quite large degree self-repairing. For quite a long time they also managed to survive without replacement parts (the survival rate is much higher now that we have the ability to repair beyond self-repair, and to make replacement parts of certain body parts, though). You've got a point with energy supplies, although humans are quite flexible in what they can use as energy supply (basically, most living things will do), and can survive quite some time between energy refills. On the other hand, a few days without water will kill a human. And without air, the survival time is measured in minutes.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    8. Re:Roboticus Superioritis by drinkypoo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Also robots have a long way to go towards having the ability to survive without logistical support such as repairs, parts, or energy supplies.

      When I hear about printers that can make parts with flexible and rigid components I think that time must not be very far off.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  2. Re:Swinger by ikkonoishi · · Score: 4, Funny

    Your wife? Of course not. You might want to hide your smoke detectors though.

  3. Gibbons by Olli_Niemitalo · · Score: 5, Informative

    Gibbon monkeys are probably the fastest climbers, and they keep their momentum by swinging their bodies around their wrists that have ball and socket joints. This robot uses a similar principle.

    1. Re:Gibbons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      I was curious to see them, so I searched for Gibbons climbing and ended up watching about an hour of National Geographic videos on various monkeys, starting with Gibbons (video continues to other monkeys).