Precision Urban Hopper Demoed
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Wednesday, 16 of September , 2009 at 2:07 am
We first heard about the Precision Urban Hopper back in May, as a jumping robot collaboration between Sandia Labs and Boston Dynamics. This video is the first time we’ve seen the thing in action, though, and it seems to be pretty well on track to fulfilling the design concept. I don’t think it would be too much of a stretch to say that the easy (easier) part is done; that is, creating a robot capable of launching itself 25 feet in the air in a specific trajectory with a piston. The thing that doesn’t appear to have been figured out yet is the ability to stabilize the jump. Certainly, the robot works fine as is: it’s durable enough to jump, crash, and keep on driving. But it would be very handy to have a robot capable of making stable jumps, which would allow it to return useful in-flight video… For example, if you want to see what’s over a wall, send this little guy over and have him jump up and take a peek. There are already solutions for this exact problem, but the Precision Urban Hopper offers more flexibility, since the hopping package can be used for both surveillance and movement.
Delivery is still scheduled for late 2010.
[ Sandia Labs ]
Comments (1)
Category: General
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Comment by John Nagle
Made Saturday, 19 of September , 2009 at 11:19 pm
That’s a useful little device. The concept was from a project at Sandia to develop a mobile land mine. This was a spherical device which fired a piston out of the bottom to shoot itself a few feet into the air. After it crash-landed, a weight inside was cranked around until the piston was at the desired angle for the next takeoff.
The Sandia concept was that these things would be spread around, and when one of them detected a target worth attacking, like a convoy, it would call for backup. Nearby mines would converge and attack the target.
That didn’t quite work out, but it wa a step towards this new thing.