Robot To Help Humans Ski Better

Writing by Evan Ackerman on Tuesday, 21 of July , 2009 at 5:41 am

I guess skiing is a more complicated sport than it seems (you just point yourself downhill and go, right?) because researchers in Japan have created a robot to explore the kinematic motions involved. The delicate interplay between balance, posture, limbs, joints, and skis during a turn is extremely difficult to model on a computer, but the robot is able to test a bunch of different combinations dynamically and provide results that are more or less reproducible. The robot has yet to graduate to actual snow, but was able to make it down an 11 meter long, 20 degree grass slope.

Sadly, I wasn’t able to dig up any video of this bot doing its thing, but I did find a couple random videos of skiing robots on YouTube. Check ‘em out, after the jump.

VIA [ Physorg ]

Comments (4)

Category: Research

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4 Comments

Made Tuesday, 21 of July , 2009 at 10:26 am

That’s really cool, seems really difficult. Wonder if anyone can make a cycling robot and if that’s harder. Would be amazing to see a bike riding robot.

Comment by Evan Ackerman

Made Tuesday, 21 of July , 2009 at 2:38 pm

Yes it would, wouldn’t it…

http://www.botjunkie.com/2009/07/21/robot-to-help-humans-ski-better/

Comment by Zool

Made Friday, 24 of July , 2009 at 8:30 am

Umm.. Evan Ackerman, did you mean to link back to this page? … I’m guessing you were aiming to link to a cycling robot, something like this… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Srwk-i5aXRQ

Comment by Evan Ackerman

Made Monday, 27 of July , 2009 at 12:44 am

Yeah, uh, whoops, good catch! I actually meant to link to the post directly before this one:

http://www.botjunkie.com/2009/07/21/flossie-evaluates-motorcycles-cant-actually-ride-them-yet/