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NASA Selects Universities To Develop Humanoid Robot Astronauts (examiner.com)
MarkWhittington writes: NASA announced that it is sending copies of its R5 Valkyrie humanoid robot to two universities for software upgrades and other research and development. The effort is part of a continuing project to develop cybernetic astronauts that will assist human astronauts in exploring other worlds. The idea is that robot astronauts would initially scout potentially hazardous environments, say on Mars, and then actively collaborate with their human counterparts in exploration. NASA is paying each university chosen $250,000 per year for two years to perform the R&D. The university researchers will have access to NASA expertise and facilities to perform the upgrades. Spoiler alert: the robots are both going to Greater Boston, to teams at MIT and Northeastern University respectively.
Forget quadruped, what exactly do legs bring to the equation? Humans use tons of robots to do a vast range of industrial tasks, but they're not legged - if they need to be able to move freely, they're on wheels or tracks. And their bodies are generally just one or more big arms with various gripping or tool elements as "fingers".
Why legs? So it can fall over?
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