Odex I Hexapod Robot From 1984
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Monday, 8 of March , 2010 at 1:04 am
Commenter Cynox was browsing through the 137 years of Popular Science magazine which are now available online, and he noticed this robot in the September 1984 issue. Called Odex I, it was developed by a (now apparently defunct) company called Odetics. Odex was six and a half feet tall, had six legs, and was fully capable of walking. Although it only weighed 370 pounds, each of its legs could lift 400 pounds. It could dead lift some 2100 pounds, and carry 900 pounds while walking at normal speed (which was about 18 inches per second). Odex used a tripod gait, and the fishbowl thing on top contained sensors that helped it avoid obstacles. It was one of the first robots with an onboard computer that helped coordinate all of its limbs. Since the limbs could articulate themselves in several directions independently, Odex was able to rapidly change its limb configuration to squeeze through tight spaces, move quickly, or lift stuff. It was able to climb into the back of a truck through a combination of automated step behaviors and teleoperation, which was pretty damn good for 1984.
Odex was called a “functionoid,” which implied that it was good for multiple tasks, as opposed to the single function robots that were in use in factories. There were a lot of potential applications for Odex, from coal mining to seafloor exploration to nuclear inspections to military operations, but despite some potential partnerships with NASA and the military and a huge amount of spending on robotics research in the late 80s, Odetics stopped working on robots by the early 90s and pretty much vanished a few years later. In light of how things went, it’s interesting to read some of the quotes from the time when Odex represented a huge technological advance:
“We believe that when historians recount the evolution of walking machines, Odetics’ research will be considered an important part of the development of this technology.”
This may actually be true, for all I know, even if the advances made by Odex I and Odetics aren’t directly associated with them anymore.
If anyone else sees any cool robots from the Pop Sci archives, please post ‘em in the comments.
[ Popular Science ]
[ Odex @ TheOldRobots ]
Thanks Cynox!
Comments (9)
Category: General
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Comment by Göran Larsson
Made Monday, 8 of March , 2010 at 1:57 am
I’m feeling old. I remember seeing the Odex on TV in 1984. It looked just as impressive as today but if I remember correctly it was rather slow and did not do anything except walk.
Comment by Uncle Warthog
Made Monday, 8 of March , 2010 at 12:21 pm
I remember seeing this thing on TV as well. If I remember correctly, the demo I saw had it climbing into and out of the truck and walking across a stage. It had a fairly spider-like gait as I recall. Very cool. I know newer versions of this thing had an arm as well and were being marketed to the nuclear power industry (though I don’t know if it was ever actually sold for it or just marketed). I’ve been trying to find more than just photos and articles, i.e. videos, of this thing on-line but have come up empty.
Comment by Melissa
Made Monday, 8 of March , 2010 at 12:50 pm
It looks like a phage.
Comment by baker
Made Monday, 8 of March , 2010 at 3:08 pm
The Odex 1 was a pretty successful robot, being sold to a number of buyers. Odetics was also a very successful company, although their success was short-lived. After doing very well in digital data storage and other tape related technologies, they branched out into robotics, and, besides the Odex 1, had fire-fighting robots that could be used in a number of dangerous situations.
Some of their other claims to fame:
Odetics’ list of credits by the mid-1980s included taking pictures of Chernobyl’s nuclear accident from space, making flight recordings on NASA’s space shuttle, developing a special laser scanner for the Department of Agriculture, and building docking and birthing devices utilized by NASA.
From what I can find, the company Odetics hasn’t vanished, but now has a new name, Iteris, and a new focus in traffic systems. Details are sparse, but from what I can tell, Odetics was still going fairly strong in 2003 as a “a market leader for video-based sensors used for surface transportation, a developer of integrated systems for facility security and trace detection of dangerous chemicals and explosives, and is a provider of automation systems to the broadcast industry.” (source) It looks like sometime around 2004 one of their subsidiaries, Iteris, took over the show. Their website can be found here: http://www.odetics-its.com.
Comment by baker
Made Monday, 8 of March , 2010 at 3:11 pm
It doesn’t look like the blockquote tag included the source for that list of credits quote… it came from http://www.answers.com/topic/odetics-inc.
Comment by David
Made Monday, 8 of March , 2010 at 3:15 pm
For videos try http://www.cyberneticzoo.com
Comment by John
Made Monday, 8 of March , 2010 at 7:54 pm
I never thought of elevators as robots, but I guess it makes sense:
http://www.popsci.com/archive-viewer?id=8ycDAAAAMBAJ&pg=44&query=elevator
Comment by Reuben
Made Wednesday, 10 of March , 2010 at 1:12 am
Thanks David, for suggesting my site http://www.cyberneticzoo.com . I do have a video clip of Odex-1 . I’m trying to load my site in chronological order, but maybe I can build this post early and include the yet-to-be-loaded-into-youtube video clip. It will appear in the Walking machines page http://cyberneticzoo.com/?page_id=164 . It will take me a few days, though. Regards, Reuben Hoggett.
Comment by Reuben
Made Wednesday, 10 of March , 2010 at 3:10 am
Me again. I’ve uploaded my ODEX-1 video clip into youtube. See embedded link here http://cyberneticzoo.com/?p=2462 .
