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Inside Mantis: a 2-Ton Hexapod Robot With a Linux Brain
DeviceGuru writes "After four years of development, Micromagic Systems has finally completed the Mantis Hexapod Walking Machine (YouTube video), claimed to be the world's largest all-terrain operational hexapod robot. The device stands nearly three meters tall, weighs just under two tons, and is controlled by a PC/104 module stack running embedded Linux."
Warning, obnoxious dubstep sountrack for video. You have been warned.
The video couldn't have been worse, considering how interesting the subject is.
The videographer should be shot on general principle.
So er it has a driver... That makes it not a robot!
Big body, small brain. I'm not sure that's how we should build machines.
I want my octopod! And I want it to climb walls.
I was really excited to open the video, and... I'm not sure they could have made a 2 ton hexapod vehicle any more boring to watch. Good job?
it went almost 10 feet in 2 min and 100 jump cuts
it put its foot on a pile of stuff then jump cut to it walking on smooth tarmac
it kicked a barrel while standing completely still
meanwhile a stupid mid 80's army hummer can travel at highway speeds. can scale a 3 foot wall, and who gives a shit about a barrel, an empty cylinder is not a problem when you have wheels that dont span 15 feet wide
But does it run Linux?
Oh wait, yes it does. Never mind then.
Bow to the hexapods!
Microsoft Kinect Spy System (THIS ARTICLE IS BEING SCRUBBED FROM THE NET - Pin, Archive, Share this article quickly!
= Microsoft Kinect Spy System
THIS ARTICLE IS BEING SCRUBBED FROM THE NET. THE SITE IT WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED TO YANKED THE PLUG ON THEIR WHOLE SITE!!! COPY/PASTE THIS ARTICLE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE TO DISCUSSION FORUMS, BLOGS, FACEBOOK, TWITTER, AND ARCHIVE AND MIRROR THIS DOCUMENT SO IT DOES NOT VANISH FOREVER!
"So you just got the Kinect/Xbox360 gaming system and you're having fun, hanging out in your underwear, plopped down in your favorite lounge chair, and playing games with your buddies. Yeah, it's great to have a microphone and camera in your game system so you can "Kinect" to your pals while you play, but did you read that Terms of Service Agreement that came with your Kinect thingy? No? Here, let me point out an important part of that service agreement.
If you accept the agreement, you "expressly authorize and consent to us accessing or disclosing information about you, including the content of your communications, in order to: (a) comply with the law or respond to lawful requests or legal process; (b) protect the rights or property of Microsoft, our partners, or our customers, including the enforcement of our agreements or policies governing your use of the Service; or © act on a good faith belief that such access or disclosure is necessary to protect the personal safety of Microsoft employees, customers, or the public."
Did you catch that? Here, let me print the important part in really big letters.
"If you accept the agreement, you expressly authorize and consent to us accessing or disclosing information about you, including the content of your communications⦠on a good faith belief that such access or disclosure is necessary to protect the personal safety of Microsoft employees, customers, or the public."
OK, is that clear enough for ya? When you use the Kinect system, you agree to allow Microsoft (and any branch of law enforcement or government they care to share information with) to use your Kinect system to spy on you. Maybe run that facial recognition software to check you out, listen to your conversations, and keep track of who you are communicating with.
I know this is probably old news to some, but I thought I would mention it because it pertains to almost all of these home game systems that are interactive. You have to remember, the camera and microphone contained in your game system have the ability to be hacked by anyone the game company gives that ability to, and that includes government snoops and law enforcement agents.
Hey, it's MICROSOFT. What did you expect?
And the same concerns apply to all interactive game systems. Just something to think about if you're having a "Naked Wii party" or doing something illegal while you're gaming with your buddies. Or maybe you say something suspicious and it triggers the DHS software to start tracking your every word. Hey, this is not paranoia. It's spelled out for you, right there in that Service Agreement. Read it! Here's one more part of the agreement you should be aware of.
"You should not expect any level of privacy concerning your use of the live communication features (for example, voice chat, video and communications in live-hosted gameplay sessions) offered through the Service."
Did you catch it that time? YOU SHOULD NOT EXPECT ANY LEVEL OF PRIVACY concerning your voice chat and video features on your Kinect box."
###
= "Listen up, you ignorant sheep. Your government is spending more money than ever to spy on its own citizens. That's YOU, my friend. And if you're one of these people who say, "Well I ain't ever done nothing wrong so why should I worry about it?' - you are dead wrong. Our civil liberties are being taken away faster than you can spit. The NSA is working away on its new "First Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cyber-security Initiative Data Center' to keep track of every last one of us. This thing will be
Going from the promo video, the thing is heavy, slow, huge, seats only one and isn't even terrain capable. Maybe Micromagic Systems is a subsidiary of EA?
#notarobot
#notquick
#bumpyride
#ihatespiders
#diedubstepdie
Oh no... it's the future.
Microsoft Kinect Spy System (THIS ARTICLE IS BEING SCRUBBED FROM THE NET - Pin, Archive, Share this article quickly!
= Microsoft Kinect Spy System
THIS ARTICLE IS BEING SCRUBBED FROM THE NET. THE SITE IT WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED TO YANKED THE PLUG ON THEIR WHOLE SITE!!! COPY/PASTE THIS ARTICLE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE TO DISCUSSION FORUMS, BLOGS, FACEBOOK, TWITTER, AND ARCHIVE AND MIRROR THIS DOCUMENT SO IT DOES NOT VANISH FOREVER!
"So you just got the Kinect/Xbox360 gaming system and you're having fun, hanging out in your underwear, plopped down in your favorite lounge chair, and playing games with your buddies. Yeah, it's great to have a microphone and camera in your game system so you can "Kinect" to your pals while you play, but did you read that Terms of Service Agreement that came with your Kinect thingy? No? Here, let me point out an important part of that service agreement.
If you accept the agreement, you "expressly authorize and consent to us accessing or disclosing information about you, including the content of your communications, in order to: (a) comply with the law or respond to lawful requests or legal process; (b) protect the rights or property of Microsoft, our partners, or our customers, including the enforcement of our agreements or policies governing your use of the Service; or © act on a good faith belief that such access or disclosure is necessary to protect the personal safety of Microsoft employees, customers, or the public."
Did you catch that? Here, let me print the important part in really big letters.
"If you accept the agreement, you expressly authorize and consent to us accessing or disclosing information about you, including the content of your communications⦠on a good faith belief that such access or disclosure is necessary to protect the personal safety of Microsoft employees, customers, or the public."
OK, is that clear enough for ya? When you use the Kinect system, you agree to allow Microsoft (and any branch of law enforcement or government they care to share information with) to use your Kinect system to spy on you. Maybe run that facial recognition software to check you out, listen to your conversations, and keep track of who you are communicating with.
I know this is probably old news to some, but I thought I would mention it because it pertains to almost all of these home game systems that are interactive. You have to remember, the camera and microphone contained in your game system have the ability to be hacked by anyone the game company gives that ability to, and that includes government snoops and law enforcement agents.
Hey, it's MICROSOFT. What did you expect?
And the same concerns apply to all interactive game systems. Just something to think about if you're having a "Naked Wii party" or doing something illegal while you're gaming with your buddies. Or maybe you say something suspicious and it triggers the DHS software to start tracking your every word. Hey, this is not paranoia. It's spelled out for you, right there in that Service Agreement. Read it! Here's one more part of the agreement you should be aware of.
"You should not expect any level of privacy concerning your use of the live communication features (for example, voice chat, video and communications in live-hosted gameplay sessions) offered through the Service."
Did you catch it that time? YOU SHOULD NOT EXPECT ANY LEVEL OF PRIVACY concerning your voice chat and video features on your Kinect box."
###
= "Listen up, you ignorant sheep. Your government is spending more money than ever to spy on its own citizens. That's YOU, my friend. And if you're one of these people who say, "Well I ain't ever done nothing wrong so why should I worry about it?' - you are dead wrong. Our civil liberties are being taken away faster than you can spit. The NSA is working away on its new "First Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cyber-security Initiative Data Center' to keep track of every last one of us. This thing will be
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these robot overlords running linux, in Russia, throwing chairs !
while (true != false) process_more_stupid_code();
It has a stigma!
Once Skynet takes control of that, we're so fucked.
This sort of technology has been available for some time, I remember seeing this six-legged forest machine complete with crane and cutting machinery back in the early 2000s: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYh54Qdh_5g Apprently it was developed in Finland by John Deree, and was only displayed rwecently (2012 press release): http://www.deere.com/wps/dcom/en_US/corporate/our_company/news_and_media/press_releases/2012/forestry/2012apr10_walking_harvester.page
Am I the only one who read the headline three times, before realizing it said "LINUX brain" instead of "HUMAN brain"?
All the people can see is : this "linux brain" is a bit slow...
What is the point of this?
It's slow and probably consumes a lot of fuel.
I'd rather take a car or a motorcycle.
From personal experience.
Never put a PC/104 setup in a system that's going to be subjected to vibration, you'll cause the connector to wear out and eventually one of the important pins on the PC/104 connector will fail. And when it does, the ISA bus presented on the PC104 connector doesn't have any error detection/correction either, meaning your system may not fail gracefully.
Not something you want in a large robot.
So nearly complete. So nearly perfect! If you only have a Linux brain....
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
// Design + Build = Inspire;
I can see why they commented it out.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
,Mantis Toboggan."
Slow as heck and can't actually climb anything (as far as I can tell from the video) which is the only real reason to have legs instead of wheels.
wild wild west cosplay
Wonder if BEAM is being used behind the scenes?
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
didnt jamie manzel do this a few years ago? http://jamius.com/Robot/Robot.html
Painfully true. All the jerkyness in the video seems to be to conceal what a klutz the thing is. It's comparable to the OSU Hexapod from 1984. The OSU thing was supposed to have "off-road" capability, but it never did more than climb a slightly sloped dirt road. DoD cut off their funding after that.
As with the machine from 30 years ago, there seems to be an option to plant five legs and take manual control of the sixth. That's how they kicked the barrel. With this capability, the operator can (eventually) step over obstacles and ditches.
Mantis seems to have nice mechanical design. It's certainly better looking than the OSU machine. Without details of the hydraulic system, though, you can't tell how controllable it is. If it's all on-off valves with no accumulators for springiness and no force feedback, it's doomed to be clunky. If it has proportional valves, strain gauges, and accumulators in the right places, it has the potential for software upgrades to better movement.
The Mantis looks like it has pure kinematic control, like the 1980s OSU machine. There's been some progress in computing and control since the 1980s. You can do dynamic control, where balance and inertia are considered. Maybe not as good as BigDog, but better than pure kinematic. That thing should be able to go a lot faster on the flat. Hobbyist hexapod robots are moving faster and much more fluidly today.
This is the year of Linux on..... ummm....the ...... Whatever the hell that thing is.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
No, we don't have autonomous robots yet. But I fear that when we do, we will more likely have self-replicating human killing machines than robots obeying Asmiov's robotic laws. Why? 1. If you propose them seriously, you looking like a fool, because, 2, people won't do that, so therefore #1 is the action of a fool, except 3., people will build robots for the express purposed to kill the enemy or evil doers, because they consider it moral and reasonable. Heck, the US is using drones around the world controlled from bases in the American Southwest. As time goes on more and more of the functions humans control will be taken over by automation.
At least my estimate lifespan is only another 20 years or so...