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In Robot Soccer, US Team RoMeLa Dominates Robocup 2011
Narmacil writes "U.S. Team RoMeLa has swept Robocup 2011, winning first place in both the kid size and teen size divisions. (Video) CHARLI, America's first full size autonomous humanoid, managed to also make the high score record for the teen size division. DARWIN, the kid-sized robot, beat the Darmstadt Dribblers, the previous world champs, and continued on to the finals to win out." There must be joy in Blacksburg today.
Our sensors _are_ pretty high precision, and very well integrated with our brain. They're also integrated well with each other. The three _big_ ones that are used in football would be sight, equilibrioception (balance), and proprioception (limb awareness), IMO (with touch and hearing playing lesser parts). Those 3 alone are very hard to replicate well in robotics, and combine into a complete package.
Did anyone else watch the video? Is it really that hard to make robots that can walk decently?
It seems like from a mechanical standpoint, it wouldn't be too hard to make something that mimics the muscular structure of the body......it's not like human muscles are particularly strong, or human nerves fast transmitting, or human sensors high precision. I'm having trouble understanding what the challenge is in building a robot that works reasonably well (or at least not dreadfully slow).
The devil is in the details. There's lots of muscles involved. Newbie mistake #1 is thinking you can build a walking mechanism using a really simplistic count of leg joints. Like trying to get away with about 4 servos per leg. You really do need a nearly fully articulated body including arms and spine, even if its cost is incredible compared to just two articulated legs. While walking to refill my water glass I felt my sore elbow moving as I dynamically balanced walking down the hall, and theoretically I wasn't using my elbow. Newbie mistake #2 is trying to use a single canned routine. Walk around some time and try to straighten or slump your back, it has an effect on gait. Even if you're not paying attention, your gait is pretty dynamic, and newbs can't program dynamic gait very well. Newbie mistake #3 is applying human male standards of beauty to something inhuman. To me, a reasonably well shaped 20s female human just coincidentally happens to have a "decent walk" that I would admire as she walks by. Other people, live and let live, their idea of living is Really liking the 4-legged gait of a sheep, or the 2 legged gait of a 'roo, etc. I'm sure to a robot, a similar robot would seem smooth and graceful, and if we don't like it, the robot's opinion would probably be to shrug shoulders and grunt "eh". Newbie mistake #4 is not emulating or handling the shock adsorption of soft tissue, both semi-statically and also dynamically. Not just female swaying as per above #3 or whatever, but the cushion of the spine and feet (and shoes!)
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Jocks play football, nerds teach robots how to play football.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
it wouldn't be too hard to make something that mimics the muscular structure of the body......it's not like human muscles are particularly strong
No, its impossible at this time to even come close to human muscle as an engineering material IF you include strength to weight ratios of the entire system (heavy batteries), power to weight ratios, peak vs sustained power output, long term durability, total energy use / efficiency, etc.
People have been trying, and failing, to build artificial limbs for centuries for trauma victims, and not only are the artificial limbs not better than the original, but they generally don't even come close to the real thing. When athletes intentionally chop off their limbs to upgrade to cybernetic models, then building a humanoid torso and bolting the off the shelf prosthetic limbs to it, then we'll know it might be reasonable. However, note athletes are legendary at not being able to make intelligent long term decisions, so it still might not work well.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
It's not a matter of beauty, it's a matter of function. These things take minutes to cover mere meters.
The two are sometimes (often?) the same, looking at spots in the giant solution space of how far outside of static stability you're willing to leap in order to walk...
One local maximum seems to be human bipedal, give them some wide hips to store more batteries and the android would inevitably have a human female gait that we would think is hot and graceful and would inevitably (pendulum effects on the legs, dynamic stability of a spinal column, etc) be about as fast as a human female.
Another local maximum if you've got four legs and lots of rocks is turtles, personally I don't think they're hot; their gait is not terribly attractive, but it seems to work for them, or at least they're not extinct yet despite our best efforts.
The local maximum (or local maximum of beauty) if you're LiPoly powered, aluminum "boned" and only have 8 servos in your body, is apparently not coincident with human female gait, even if its beautiful in its own local maximum way.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Winning 2 divisions in 1 league out of 5 is NOT a sweep. A sweep would be winning all the leagues. 1 out of 5 isn't even close. Congratulations on the wins in the humanoid league.
For those that are curious, the other 4 leagues are simulation (focusing on team play and low barrier to entry), small size robot (hardware/software combined, wheeled robots), middle size robot (hardware/software combined, wheeled robots), and standard platform league (software only using real humanoid robots).
Even more ridiculous....the English came up with the word soccer. It was a play on "association" in "association football". When the game came over here, we already had American football, so we used the other word they had for it.
Not ridiculous...did anyone else watch that US women's world cup match today? What I am about to say is shocking...
It was as exciting a sporting event as I have ever watched. Seriously.
U.S. Team RoMeLa has swept Robocup 2011, winning first place in both the kid size and teen size divisions.
And at the same time, the US women's soccer team advanced to the Semi final.
I don't like where this is going, Sarah Connor::
The US still sucks, except for robots and women.