OMG It’s an autonomous military robot with a deadly weapon attached! PANIC!!!

Or, just find yourself a red cape, and you’ll be fine.

[ Boston Dynamics ]

Boston Dynamics’ quadrupedal BigDog robot set a new legged autonomous distance record last year by traveling 12.8 miles without any human intervention. Following a series of GPS waypoints, BigDog walked a 2.5 miles per hour, autonomously avoiding obstacles and dealing with varied terrain until its fuel ran out.

This is pretty impressive, but not good enough for DARPA, who wants a legged robot with a range of 20 miles and a 400 pound payload for its new Legged Squad Support System program. Based on the progression of the BigDog system, though, I have no doubt that this will be achievable in the near future.

Just for fun, here’s a new (but unrelated) video featuring BigDog:

[ Boston Dynamics ]

I’m sure most of you remember BigDog, Boston Dynamics’ pack-hauling robotic quadruped with the ability to walk around on ice while looking really, really funny. If not, allow me to refresh your memory with one of the most entertaining robotics videos I’ve ever seen:

DARPA, impressed with the BigDog prototype, has ordered up a new robot that I’m just going to go ahead and call BiggerDog. While BigDog can carry about 340 pounds for 13 miles, BiggerDog is going to have to carry upwards of 400 pounds for 20 miles over any and all terrain. It’s also going to have to sprint at 10 mph, carry enough fuel to last all day, operate in freezing cold and blistering heat, and be able to handle puddles and swamps and torrential downpours. And it’s going to have to get a heck of a lot quieter.

And, there’s more. DARPA also wants BiggerDog to be able to autonomously follow either GPS waypoints or a human, and respond to voice and gesture control. This all sounds pretty demanding, but the hardest part (getting a robot to walk on four legs over uneven terrain while carrying stuff) has been done already. Also, my guess is that DARPA wouldn’t ask for all of these specifics unless they were well within the realm of possibility. I can’t wait to see the result, especially if there are some icy surfaces and a few hefty kicks involved.

[ Boston Dynamics ] VIA [ Danger Room ]

Boston Dynamics has quite a reputation for innovative of methods bot locomotion (like RHex), but some of their most popular (best funded?) projects are of the four legged sort. We introduced you to LittleDog here on BotJunkie last September, and loyal readers might even remember his brother, BigDog, from when we covered him on OhGizmo two years ago. BigDog has come a long way since his first few tentative steps… The DARPA funded, gear-hauling quadruped is now able to carry a staggering 340 pounds over terrain that would challenge a human carrying nothing. And he survives being kicked in the ribs with way more grace than I do. Check it out:

[ BigDog ] VIA [ Automaton ]

Boston Dynamics is quite innovative when it comes to robot locomotion, and RHex is no exception. His appendages are able to provide wheel-like mobility with leg-like traction when necessary. If you’ll be operating in a primarily aquatic environment, you can switch out the legs for paddles, and RHex is equally at home. A completely sealed body means that RHex can operate just fine in virtually any situation, and he’s wirelessly controllable from over half a kilometer away with both front and rear cameras. Want one to play with? Apparently, they’re available, but I don’t really want to know how much an RHex would be… My guess is something on the order of six arms and legs.

[ RHex ]

By Evan Ackerman

Robots are notoriously bad when it comes to the unpredictable. This is unfortunate, since most of the environments on Earth are more or less unpredictable. Professor Stefan Schaal from USC Viterbi is attempting to build a robot dog that can autonomously navigate over very rough terrain, and has received $1.5 million from DARPA‘s Learning Locomotion program in order to do so. DARPA is interested because a pack of robot dogs would be great at carrying supplies for troops, as long as they’re capable of keeping up on their own. Currently, they have large dogbots in active development that can handle flats and ramps, but nothing more challenging.

Schaal’s LittleDog is designed more as a software and sensor research platform than to be a hardware prototype for DARPA. LittleDog itself is built by Boston Dynamics, and is fairly complicated. Each of LittleDog’s legs is powered by three electric motors, giving them a lot of flexibility. Sensors measure the angles of each joint as well as body orientation and foot/ground contact. The basic strategy for walking over both smooth and rough terrain is “to adjust a smooth walking pattern generator with the selection of every foot placement such that the center of gravity : follows a stable trajectory. To do this, the robot calculates where and how it should proceed, based on the current position, velocity, and acceleration of its legs. If one effort fails, the dog learns from its mistakes and tries another route the next time.”

There are two clips below; the first is an earlier (wired) version of LittleDog dealing with some pretty rocky terrain, and the second clip shows a wireless (and noticeably more evolved) version.

[ Little Dog ] VIA [ USC Viterbi ]