LittleDog: Locomotion Research Is Exhausting

Writing by Evan Ackerman on Tuesday, 8 of September , 2009 at 3:03 am

Researchers at places like MIT have been using Boston Dynamics‘ LittleDog robot for years now as a testbed to teach legged robots to learn how to traverse variable terrain on their own. This video shows some highlights of a “dynamic double-support gait,” which means (as near as I can tell) that LittleDog is supporting itself, at times, on only two of its four legs. This is a substantially more efficient way of negotiating terrain than we first saw two years ago. LittleDog also demonstrates some markedly biological ways of negotiating obstacles (with the possible exception of the belly flop on the Jersey barrier)… I especially liked how it pranced in place slightly before tackling each stair. All this stuff is obviously a lot of work for a little bot, since poor LittleDog completely collapses at the end of every test.

LittleDog, remember, is teaching itself the most efficient way to negotiate these surfaces. Overhead cameras examine the terrain and plan out LittleDog’s route by computing a ‘cost’ for each step, which takes into account the distance moved towards the goal as well as the potential for a fall. After a lot of trial and error, LittleDog figures out how to best compromise between progress and stability, and the lessons it learns could be propagated up to other, larger quadruped robots.

This video is from Phase 2 of DARPA’s Learning Locomotion program… MIT’s LittleDog team was awarded funding for Phase 3 of this program back in 2008, so we’ll keep you updated.

[ MIT Robot Locomotion Group ]
[ 2006 Abstract ]

Comments (3)

Category: Artificial Intelligence, Biorobotics, Research

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3 Comments

Comment by Alex

Made Tuesday, 8 of September , 2009 at 4:38 pm

Nice. I especially love the part where it goes up stairs and over gaps. That was really cool to see. Although I think it is still keeping balance on more than 2 legs at a time for some of its other moves.

Comment by Joey1058

Made Wednesday, 9 of September , 2009 at 12:05 pm

I wonder why it always collapses after each task?

Comment by Norman

Made Sunday, 13 of September , 2009 at 6:22 am

It looks like it has a goal of reaching the small grey circle at the end of the path. It always seems to belly-flop onto the circle.

Apparently, little dog has problems descending from a height without getting off balance. Every time that it gained more than 8 inches in altitude, the researchers added a riser so it wouldn’t have to descend.